RUIS

Beloved fellow freak,

Ruis is a small 12page newspaper that focusses on the margin of pop music. The newspaper is available for free in specialised record stores and cultural centres and has a print run of 2000 copies. It's funded and edited by the belgian promotor (K-RAA-K)3.

Once in a while we'll update you with the content and reviews so you'll stay informed.


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CONTENT RUIS 11,  SEPTEMBER 2005
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ARTICLES:
- Esther Venrooy
- Campbell Kneale (Birchville Cat Mote)
- Ultralyd
- Minimalisme overview

REVIEWS:
- FRANK WRIGHT D The Complete ESP-Disk Recordings 2cd (ESP-Disk)
- JESES WITH ME D Jesus With Me cd  (Psycho-Path)
- CHARLOTTEFIELD D How Long Are You Staying cd  (FatCat)
- SHARKS AND SEALS D It used to be knobs and machines now it's numbers and light cd (Brilliante)
- BRENDON ANDEREGG D Falling Air cd (Psycho-Path)
- THE OSLO DEADTRASH PROJECT  - Headpixel Data cd (Carte Postale)
- THE SPHERICAL MINDS D Fern cd (Carte Postale)
- HAIR POLICE D Drawn Dead cd (Hanson)
- UNSTABLE ENSEMBLE D Embers
- COLD BLEAK HEAT - It's magnificent, but it isn't war
- PHILIP GAYLE D The Mommy Row (Family Vineyard)
- HANGEDUP - Clatter for control cd (constellation)
- GREAT LAKE SWIMMERS - Bodies and minds (fargo)

download at http://www.kraak.net/ruis/ruis_2005_09.pdf


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CONTENT RUIS 12,  OCTOBER 2005
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ARTICLES:
- Ignatz
- Daud Khan
- Mimeo
- Yannis Kyriakides


REVIEWS:
- Animal Collective D Feels CD (Fat Cat)
- Ed Askew D Ask the Unicorn CD
- Sun Ra D Nothing Is CD (Esp-Disk)
- Vashti Bunyan D Lookaftering CD (Fat Cat)
- The Golden Oaks & Brothers Of The Occult Sisterhood cd (Time-Lag Records)
- Holy Kiss D Back To Colma 7Ó (Release The Bats)
- Other Peoples Children - Inevitable Shit cd (Audiobot)
- Paavoharju - YhŠ HŠmŠrŠŠ CD (fonal)
- Psi D Artificially Retarded Soul Care Operators CD (evolving Ear)
- Songs of Green Pheasant CD (Fat Cat)
- Swann Danger 10Ó (Release The Bats)
- Mike Tamburo DBeating of the Rewound CD (Music Fellowship)
- Richard YoungsD The Naive Shaman CD (Jagjaguwar)

download at http://www.kraak.net/ruis/ruis_2005_10.pdf


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CONTENT RUIS 13,  NOVEMBER 2005
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ARTICLES:
- Raster-Noton
- Droon & Sickboy double interview
- Jandek
- Greg Malcolm
- Kemialliset YstŠvŠt
- Black Performance Hart

REVIEWS:
- The Skygreen Leopards D Jehova Surrender CDEP (Jagjaguwar)
- Secret Mommy D Very Rec cd (Ache)
- Books on Tape D Dinosaur Dinosaur cd (Alien8)
- Sunn O))) D Black1 cd (Southern Lord)
- Spasm / Building Transmissions lp (eigen beheer)
- Gary Higgins D Red Hash (Drag City)

download at http://www.kraak.net/ruis/ruis_2005_11.pdf


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CONTENT RUIS 14,  DECEMBER 2005
reservation advertisement deadline : 1 november!
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- Mountains and the Apestaartje label
- Psychic paramounts
- Poesie sonore
- Mouthus
- Invisible pyramid
...
`

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Aalst: KC Netwerk // Antwerpen: Freaks End Future, Brabo, CC Luchtbal // Brugge: Republiek // Brussel: Le Bonheur, Music Mania, Recyclart, AB, Beurs, Cinema Nova, Bolle Books, Lab[au] // Diksmuide: 4AD // Genk : TOR // Gent: Vynilla, Music Mania, Kunstencentrum Vooruit, Use-it, Logos // Hasselt: Kunstencentrum Belgie, JJ Records // Kortrijk: Limelight // Leuven: JJ Records, Stuk Kunstencentrum vzw, Bibliotheek Tweebronnen // Mechelen: kc nOna // Opwijk : Nijdrop

Not even for money!

Hi-tech Cassandras foresee trouble with ID cards Labour's ID card scheme could be an expensive way of creating new security problems - and that's according to people likely to benefit from it, writes Mark Tran Friday October 21, 2005 Technology companies stand to benefit from the government's plans for a national identity card - but they have turned out to be the unexpected Cassandras of the scheme.

A growing number of hi-tech firms say that far from improving security or cutting down fraud, the cards could actually create security risks. The warning comes as the government's contentious ID cards bill this week cleared the Commons - albeit with the government's majority slashed to its lowest margin since the election.

---

---

"A national ID card for the UK is overly ambitious, extremely expensive and will not be a panacea against terrorism or fraud, although it will make a company like mine very happy," said Roberto Tavano, a biometrics specialist for Unisys, a US technology company that has worked on national identity schemes in South Africa and Malaysia.

Unisys, a company with experience in producing ID cards, is expected to be among the companies bidding for tenders if the government gets its way on ID cards in parliament, yet it is critical of the scheme. And it is not alone.

Earlier this week, Microsoft warned that the ID card posed a huge security risk that could increase the likelihood of confidential personal information falling into the hands of hackers and criminals.

Jerry Fishenden, national technology officer of Microsoft UK, told the website silicon.com: "I have concerns with the current architecture and the way it looks at aggregating so much personal information and biometrics in a single place.

"There are better ways of doing this. Even the biometrics industry says it is better to have biometrics stored locally."

While Microsoft underlined the allure of confidential information to criminals, Unisys has pointed to the technological hurdles. Unisys says a central database would be out of date as soon as it was set up and would be hugely expensive to update. [...]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/economicdispatch/story/0,12498,1597733,00.html

And yet, in spite of all of this, twenty five people was all it took to decide that the entire country should be subjected to this nonsense. Not twenty five nor twenty five thousand should have the right to enslave a single human being simply because they held a ballot.

And where was the Guardian campaign to put this bill down? Where was the petition printed in its pages? Even if such things do nothing, the gesture would have been welcome. Clearly, everyone has the absolute right to refuse to register in this system. It is something so dangerous, so wrong and concieved in a delusional stupor that even the CONTRACTORS WHO STAND TO BENEFIT say that it simply will not work. Honestly, in this world where money is God, even those whose sole motivation is money and the capturing of lucrative contracts are saying its no good...have you ever seen anything like this before?! Now its up to the lords to return sanity and reject this bad business....but...how many of them have the computer literacy to understand why its so bad; the immorality of it should be enough, but then, when has that ever been enough?

The Horror.....The Horror

Some have questioned why we republish explicit images of war Some have questioned why we republish explicit, even gruesome, images of wartime violence. One only need look back to World War II when most images of dead soldiers were censored by the government, and no cameras were allowed on the battlefield. Such whitewashing of the truth is at odds with the First Amendment freedoms that this country enjoys. These soldiers fought to preserve our freedoms, and the truth has a way of coming out. As Time Magazine said when it published the first wartime casualty photos of 3 dead soldiers on a beach in New Guinea being washed up in the tide: "Dead men have indeed died in vain if live men refuse to look at them." We agree. -NowThatsFuckedUp.com

http://www.nowthatsfuckedup.com/bbs/ftopic4178.html&start=0 Now imagine that those dead people were British. And that link, surprisingly, has some really terrible accounts on it. It is the only site with the entire Googled phrase on it.....hmmmmm:

Snake's Oil

During the 1980s two-thirds of Somalia was divided among Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Philips oil. Thanks to pro-US military dictator Mohamed Siad Barre. Between 1977 and 1989 the US supported Barre at $100 million a year for economic and military aid. Barre was overthrown in January 1991. Daddy Bush, then VP was on hand to officially open the Texas-based Hunt Oil Corporation's refinery in Yemen in April 1986. In his speech, which concluded a 10-day Middle East tour, Bush stressed “the growing strategic importance to the West of developing crude oil sources in the region." (Boy Bush also smiles at Texas Hunt Oil, appointing James Oberwetter as Saudi ambassador.) As usual, when the locals finally tossed out the US dictator, the US entered to bring democracy, freedom, peace, and stability - yawn. Hollywood and the media glamorized the Daddy Bush fiasco with "Blackhawk Down" and portrayed Somalis as murdering Black warlords incapable of running their own country and too stupid to accept US and UN kindness. Another quest for oil sold as a humanitarian relief mission to feed the hungry, who starve thanks to US and its dictators (famines are government related, not due to drought, etc). A bungled Bushcapade becomes an American war story with heroes. Body count 18 us, 1000 them. And Clinton can take the blame since he called off the quest. (Blackhawk Down, from uber producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who seems to produce much of our heartwarming propaganda these days.) UN Peacekeepers in Somalia, roasting a child. As the oil grab under the guise of feeding the poor didn't work we now have the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (think tank) providing cover and warning Somalia is "a logistic centre for al-Qaeda." The consequences are serious, since the terrorists are still at large thanks to the protection given to them by ordinary Somalis, the ICG report concludes. Boy Bush froze assets November 2001 of Al-Barakaat Bank, Mogadishu; through which 80 percent of Somalis receive funds from family members working outside Somalia. Breathtaking isn't it that the US knew in less than 60 days after 9/11 where gobs of terrorists banked but can't trace anthrax letters or those 9/11 put options on stocks? Since "them" ordinary Somalis wouldn't accept US empire with rice packets from Daddy Bush, "them" will have to be killed as terrorists in the "Struggle Against Violent Extremism." Step right up, buy it here. Benevolent oily white folks have to SAVE the world, again and again. [...]

http://kateablog.blogspot.com/ This is one blog we need to read regularly.

The Lion of the Destert!

This shameful farce isn't even victor's justice. It is a Soviet show trial. Because he was removed unjustly, Saddam Hussein is still the rightful ruler of Iraq. We had no right to invade Iraq, no right to continue occupying Iraq and no right to put the leader of a sovereign nation on trial. His alleged crimes are irrelevant. We cannot arbitrarily invade countries and try their leaders. Tom, Cambridge [...]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/4354302.stm The 'Lion of the Destert' refuses to acknowledge the authority of the kangaroo court set up to legitimise his execution:

"Have you ever been a judge before?" Saddam said. [...]

Even 'Tom' from Cambridge can see through this sham trial. Predictably, the commenters from BBC Arabic are all foaming at the mough baying for his blood. Ho hum.

Amid some verbal sparring with the judge, the former Iraqi leader stated: "I preserve my constitutional rights as the president of Iraq. I do not recognise the body that has authorised you and I don't recognise this aggression. [...]

What he did, whatever that was, is nothing compared to the millions who were systematically slaughtered by Murder Inc and its wholley owned subsidiary. If he should go on trial, then so should those who pulled the trigger on Iraq's millions of dead.

Promession

Freeze-drying touted as new green burial FIONA MACGREGOR DEAD bodies could be freeze-dried, shaken to a fine powder and used as compost under proposals to introduce a new, more eco-friendly method of corpse disposal to the UK.

The process, which is known as promession, has been developed in Sweden and aims to address the shortage of burial spaces and reduce the mercury pollution created by dental fillings during cremation.

The Scottish Executive said last night that promession could be considered in its current review of burial and cremation legislation, after councillors in England revealed they were looking at adopting the procedure.

It involves freezing the coffin and body to -18C before lowering them into liquid nitrogen at -196C, which leaves them extremely brittle.

A vibrating pad is used to reduce the remains to a powder and a magnetic field then removes all traces of mercury and other metal residues from fillings or hip replacements.

The remains are then put into a biodegradable coffin made from vegetable matter and buried in a shallow grave, where they will be absorbed into the earth within six to 12 months.

Loved ones could plant a tree or shrub on top of the grave, to absorb nutrients from the remains, supporters of the promession system suggest.

The cost of the process is expected to be similar to that for a cremation - around one-third of the price of a grave plot and traditional burial. [...]

"Since it would not be covered by cremation law, I don't see why it shouldn't happen, as long as it is not offending against public health or local government regulations. Sooner or later we're going to have to stop burying people because all the space will be taken up. [...]

http://news.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=2086492005 Soylent Green!

A thick dumb elephant

Clarke pledges ID card data will be limited
to information on passports

Alan Travis Home affairs editor
Tuesday October 18, 2005
The Guardian

The home secretary, Charles Clarke, will today guarantee that the personal
details contained on the national identity card will not go beyond those
currently held on passports.   He is to announce that he will write the
guarantee into the legislation which passes through its final stages in the
Commons today.

The bill specifies that only name, date and place of birth, gender,
address, nationality and immigration status can be recorded on the ID
database. To guard against "function creep" the home secretary has promised
that fresh primary legislation will have to be introduced if extra personal
details such as health records, criminal records or other background
information were to be added.

The guarantee will even extend to a ban on the inclusion of any numbers
that could lead to sensitive personal details being disclosed.
These include a personal code for the police national computer or an NHS
number which might enable a cross-check to be made with medical records.

Mr Clarke will also promise that everyone will be able to access their
entry on the national ID card database and see which organisations had been
verifying their identity.

At the same time ministers will table new government amendments to ensure
that those who access the national ID cards register will not be able to
tell who has a criminal record logged on the police national computer.

The home secretary is also to announce new powers to punish those who
tamper with the cards during their manufacture...

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,11026,1594645,00.html

Now lets look at this carefully:

Mr Clarke will also promise that everyone will be able to access their
entry on the national ID card database and see which organisations had
been verifying their identity.

You stupid elephant eared pig. In order for everyone to be able to see who has been checking their identity, the NIR will have to store more than just your passport details; it will also have to store a record of everyone who has accessed your details. Wether or not this is held on the same database table as your details or a machine called 'NIR' is irrelevant; that informaton has to be stored in order for you to be able to retrieve it, and if YOU can retrieve it, ANYONE ELSE can retrieve it also, and find out who has been checking you out. Does he REALLY think that everyone is so STUPID?!

The guarantee will even extend to a ban on the inclusion of any numbers
that could lead to sensitive personal details being disclosed.

You computer illiterate accessory to murder. This will not stop anyone setting up a third party database where unique hashes of the NIR records have been used to create unique numbers. By default, a central database will assign a unique number to each person that the system owners will have access to. Anyone who thinks this will not happen is simply wrong. Also, does he think that each card will not have a serial number? Does he think that this number will not be available to the scanners that will be reading these cards?

...home secretary has promised that fresh primary legislation will have
to be introduced if extra personal details such as health records,
 criminal records or other background information were to be added.

He has not promised that fresh legislation would NOT be introduced, only that it would NEED to be introduced. He might be caught with his pants down like that bastard blunket, and then we will have a new home secretary who will inevitably pass that legislation, which will read that, "any and all data needed for law enforcement shall be enterable on the NIR". And that will be the end of the matter. It is most important that this skeleton system not be introduced in the first place so that later governments with more spine can hang flesh on the systsem. This is pretty obvious. It means not registering in the system if they pass the legislation, and making sure that everyone you know knows you won't be doing it and why. Pledges from the New Labour Murder Cabal...very funny!

Royal Society Issues IP Charter

Re:Fatalism

(Score:4, Insightful)

by QuantumG (50515) <qg@biodome.org> on Mon October 17, 12:52 AM (#13806345) (http://rtfm.insomnia.org/~qg/tcpsafe/ | Last Journal: Sat August 27, 03:14 PM)

Peaceful protest no longer works. Violent protest no longer works. A military coup won't work. So what's left? Campaign contributions. The only way to influence politics is with money. Therefore the people who influence politics to get money are the ones who will be able to influence politics the most with money. No, the only way to get out of the copyright mess we are in now is to educate the public. At present they still have the right to choose to use works that are freely licensed over works that are not. When the public stops paying the copyright cartel their political influence will fade and then maybe we'll have a brief chance to get rid of these crazy laws. [...] http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/16/2156221&tid=99&tid=17 Like the fresh smell of manure on a Somerset morning in Autumn.

The Man Machine

'Machines' Mr Cameron, who has previously backed the relaxation of drug laws, was first asked at a fringe meeting at this month's Conservative party conference if he had ever taken drugs himself. The 39-year-old shadow education secretary told the meeting he had had a "typical student experience", adding later in a television interview: "I did lots of things before I came into politics which I shouldn't have done. We all did." But the question has refused to go away after leadership rivals Liam Fox and Ken Clarke both confirmed they had never taken Class A drugs. Tackled about the issue again on Thursday's Question Time, Mr Cameron said: "I'm allowed to have had a private life before politics in which we make mistakes and we do things that we should not and we are all human and we err and stray". He said it would be sad to have politicians who were "just machines". "I didn't spend the early years of my life thinking: 'I better not do anything because one day I might be a politician' because I didn't know I was going to be a politician'. "And I haven't answered the question about drugs because I think that's all in the past and I don't think you have to answer it," he added. [...] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4340328.stm My emphasis. Hmmm; if he had known that he was going to be a politician, would he have not dropped that tab of acid? So. This man cannot possibly be FOR ID cards and the NIR, because if these things are brought into being, no one will have the sort of privacy that he is steadfastly claiming for himself. He is like those journalists that believe that freedom of speech is only for journalists and not the 'ordinary man'. As far as I am concerned, it would be 'sad' if everyone in britain were 'just machines', to hell with the politicians! Everyone in the UK should not have to think "I had better not do anything wrong, like buying too much wine this weekend, because one day I might want a job and my would-be employer might see a record of booze buying that he might or might not think is over the top, implying alcoholism tendencies"... and yet, this is precisely what will happpen in the future if the ID/NIR system is rolled out. Your every buy of booze, mags, fags, petrol ... every time you are forced to show your ID card for a check will be recorded, and made accessible to anyone with access to a terminal. Clarke has today unveilled his cheaper ID card. That fat asshole can't be trusted obviously. Wether or not this young guy is any good, and really, how could he be? At least the argument against ID/NIR has been given this shaft of light to play with.

Google UFO Launched

Google tracks UFO sightings with new map

By THE NEW MEXICAN October 12, 2005 Using their Google Maps API (or application program interface), Google has launched a map of UFO sightings at http://www.ufomaps.com/. The interactive map is dotted with "flying saucer" icons indicating where UFOs have been sighted. Clicking on the icon pulls up a short summary of the sighting, with an additional link to a more detailed report. Thte data is from the National UFO Reporting Center. The Google initiative is not the only site to use maps to chart UFO activity. http://www.larryhatch.net/ is a detailed effort to graph UFO activity ffrom the past 50 years or ealier, and as a sizable set of graphs, charts, histograms and other data. http://www.ufodisclosure.com tracks alleged UFO flight corridors and patterns near Bisbee, Arizona. While not offering maps, another serious effort of research is at http://www.ufoinfo.com/.

http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/33610.html

The Axis of Beaurocracy

Classic globalism. Classic liberalism to equate the corrupt European sensibilities with logic and fair-mindedness. Classic liberalism to believe that the Left-leaning media-driven attitude about the War in Iraq has anything to do with objective reality. Classic liberalism to believe that the War in Iraq can be compared to everything in history. Absolute myopia. The Left has no grounding in proportion, objectivity or reality. The global society is not the inventor of the Internet. What utter arrogance for it to believe that it has a right to be proprietor. Classic socialism: create nothing, appropriate and regulate everything. Piss off, Mueller. Piss off Europe. Your bitch asses are in no position to sermonize. We've saved your asses in WW1, WW2 and the Cold War. All this grief from the continent that gave the world Nazism, totalitarism, Fascism. Now we have to take their socialist, globalist shit and believe that they have a track-record to be trusted. Accept our gracious offer of allowing you to plug into our Internet. If you don't like it, create your OWN Internet. BUILD SOMETHING OF YOUR OWN FOR A CHANGE. [...] http://www.icannwatch.org/

I enjoyed that post from the ICANN Watch site, especially the 'create nothing, apropriate and regulate everything' line. The facts are very plain; go make your own internet if you don't like the one that was made for you. The tools are out there and you don't even have to pay for them. This would present a huge business opportunity for telecoms companies; firstly, they would make money building these mini national internets. Then they will make money charging you to connect to the real internet, which will suddenly become a premium service. In the end, the internet will become more expensive to access outsde of the usa, which will be the only netspace of any value. Everyone will be desperate to connect to the real internet, email will be disrupted; in fact, because networks hate regulation, these national internets will stagnate, like Minitel, as the real internet continues to magnetically aggregate the best content and services, until someone wakes up and realizes that 'hey, this is one thing, like the weather, that we cannot control'. What a story! This guy also notes that Vivianne Reding is a total computer illiterate, and makes some fun out of it all:

A number of people, notably Viviane Reding, the European Commissioner for Information Society and Media, have been asking about how to Break The Internet. Since Mme Reding seems to have absolutely no prior experience in the Information Technology, Computing or Telecommunications industries, I have prepared this brief HOWTO. 2. Build the network of Root Servers. This is somewhat more difficult. What you really need to do is get some ISPs and universities to agree to host a root server. Unfortunately, the people who work at these institutions have an overdeveloped sense of their own competence, what with all those years of experience, PhDs in Engineering and Computing, and having helped build the Internet in the first place (perish the thought that technologists have a better understanding of technology than you! After all, you have a doctorate in "Human Sciences"! Science! That's better than technology!). So you have two options to persuade them to cooperate: Bludgeon Them With Bureaucracy, or Bribe Them With Cold, Hard Cash. The choice of which option is left as an exercise for the reader. 5. Get everyone to use the new Root Zone. At first, this seems like the hardest part. But actually, it's not. All you need to do is get all the parliaments in all the countries in the EU to pass laws to force all the ISPs, commercial organizations, academic institutions and private citizens in their countries to use the new DNS root, and make it illegal for them to use any other. After all, if you can legislate for straight bananas, you can do this! For the Chinese and Iranians, it's much easier. If someone complains, they can just execute them. Wouldn't life be easier if you could do that? 6. Sit back and Watch it Burn. Right, now you've broken the Internet, let's pass a law to set the value of Pi to be 3! That'll make things much better!

http://www.circleid.com/article/1241_0_1_0_C/ indeed! Seriously, the second paragraph is most interesting, just who the heck do they think they are going to get to run these mission critical services? Its hard enough trying to get someone to plumb in a bathroom in the EU; no self respecting university dept will have anything to do with this nonsense...the whole thing is a non starter.

Monkeys on keyboards

"The US is absolutely isolated and that is dangerous," she said during a briefing with journalists in London.

"Imagine the Brazilians or the Chinese doing their own internet. That would be the end of the story.

"I am very much afraid of a fragmented internet if there is no agreement." [...]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4327928.stm

There was a thread on Slashdot a few days ago about this. The fact of the matter is that the Internet is an agreement between private people to route traffic. It is a technical 'problem' not a political one. Any country can set up its own private network, like Saudi Arabia has, and if the 'rest of the world' doesnt like ICANN being in its position, then they can spend the money to make whatever network they like.

This is a perfect example of why no European country ever came up with anything like the internet (the country closest to making some kind of useful network being France with its hopelessly limited Minitel). The person they put in charge of this matter is a total computer illiterate with no background whatsoever in the subject.

Lets look at the CV of Viviane Reding, 'European Commissioner responsible for the net':

Personal details

Born on 27 April 1951 in Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg, Married, three children

Education: Doctor of human sciences, Sorbonne, Paris

Professional career

1978-1999

Journalist, Luxemburger Wort

1986-1998

President, Luxembourg Union of Journalists

Political career

1979-1989

Member of Luxembourg Parliament

• President of social committee
• Member of the Office of the Chamber of Deputies
• Member of Benelux Parliament
• Member of the North Atlantic Assembly (leader of Christian Democrat/Conservative group)

1981-1999

Communal councillor, city of Esch

• President of Cultural Affairs Committee 1992-1999

1988-1993

National president of Christian-Social Women

1995-1999

Vice-president, PCS (Parti Chrétien-Social)

1989-1999

Member of the European Parliament

• President of the Petitions Committee 1989-1992
• Vice-president of Social Committee 1992-1994
• Vice-president of Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs Committee 1997-1999
• Head of Luxembourg delegation to EPP
• Member of EPP group office

1999-2004

Member of the European Commission (Education, Culture, Youth, Media, Sport)

2004-

Member of the European Commission (Information Society and Media)

There is not a single line in there related to computers, except the last one, where she has just been given the job for heaven knows what reason. It would have been far more sensible to appoint Tim Berners-Lee with this poistion, he is a European, and he has the understanding to do the job correctly. He would never waste time on this DNS nonsense and instead, would focus on the real issues of importance, like how France and Germany block content or the insane copyright and patent laws that attack the network's usefulness etc etc.

America has done some bad stuff, but putting control of the root servers in the hands of computer illiterates for no good reason is just insane.

Alfred Hermida 'Technology editor, BBC News website' is just another journalist like this commissioner, who has presented an article without any FACTS. There are no facts about how the internet runs at the top level, there is only this single very vague line:

..."It manages how net browsers and e-mail programs direct traffic."

Yeah great. The relevant facts of this matter are technical not political, and its is easy to find out precisely what they are and to explain it. Its also easy to find out what would happen if the EU started its own DNS system and legally mandated all EU ISPs to use it.

Honestly, there is nothing more revolting than an ignorant apointee blowing off jealous steam and causing fear uncertainty and doubt....except an irresponsible and biased journalist who puts heat under the fat underbelly to stoke the boiler.

Look at all of his articles. They are all of the same type, hysteria focussed, issue pumping garbage. Really, there must be SOMONE at the BBQ who has got a clue.

We of course already know that there is no one at The Guardian that has a clue:

It would be wrong to exaggerate the influence of Icann since the internet is by its nature a highly fragmented system that is very difficult to control. But Icann, though nominally independent, is subject to a veto by the US department of commerce which set it up. The Bush administration has made it crudely clear that it will not give up its veto and especially not to a body answering to the UN. It is time the US had a more mature approach. Whatever its origins, the internet is a global phenomenon and that must be reflected in its governance. The US has done immensely well out of its invention since it produces most of the hardware and software that powers the internet. This has been a big factor in the prolonged revival of the US economy during the past decade. Whatever legitimate worries there may be about threats to security under broadened control they must not be used as an excuse to prevent the emergence of a new model of internet governance to reflect its global structure. This need not spell the end of Icann, which has done a good job. It would certainly mean broadening the base of its stakeholders. There is a need for a separate body to deal with global issues such as spamming, child pornography, intellectual property and abuses of democratic rights. The UN would be good for this role, though its bureaucratic structure is not best fitted to run a fast-moving phenomenon such as the internet, nor to deal with political problems including China, which recently forced Yahoo to hand over data that led to the imprisonment of a journalist. China has also been trying to change domain name suffixes to make them inoperable in China. Any new body should have a membership and constitution that reflects the extraordinarily democratic character of the internet, and which also protects it against interference from governments. [...]

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/opinion/story/0,16541,1589374,00.html The internet is not "a global phenomenon and that must be reflected in its governance". It is a private set of networks that agree to co-operate for the benefit of its users. Its workings have nothing to do with government. "it produces most of the hardware and software that powers the internet". This is simply wrong. The origin of the software that runs the internet is irrelevant, since it is free software that anyone can download alter and use at no cost. Also, people from all over the world have contributed to the creation of this software.... whoever wrote this leader is completely and utterly clueless. Anyone can download a copy of Linux (made [initailly] by a Finnish man) run BIND and DNS and whatever they need, they can set up government manufacturing divisions to make their own routers if they dont trust commercial ones, and then SET UP THEIR OWN INTERNET. They can then mandate that the only language to be used on it is Luxembourgish, and that you have to be taxed, show ID, be fingerprinted, consent to all your activities being recorded just to access it.

Music from the future

Jeff Mills - WIRE2003 UR Timeline [Live] http://www.basicmath.jp/

PhotoShop or Planet of the Bears?

The Egg of Umber

ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) -- Scientists have made from scratch the Spanish flu virus that killed as many as 50 million people in 1918, the first time an infectious agent behind a historic pandemic has ever been reconstructed.

Taubenberger's team sequenced genome information recovered from a female flu victim buried in the Alaskan permafrost in 1918. Then, they shared the data with researchers at New York's Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Using a technique called reverse genetics, the Mount Sinai researchers used the genetic coding to create microscopic, virus-like strings of genes, called plasmids.

The plasmids then were sent to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, where they were inserted into human kidney cells for the final step in the virus reconstruction.

"We carefully considered the implications of publishing this research and concluded that the knowledge we're gaining to potentially protect public health far outweighs the risk of working with the virus," Kennedy said. The Spanish flu of 1918 was a terrible pandemic. In a few months, it killed more people than any other illness in recorded world history -- an estimated 20 million to 50 million worldwide, including roughly 550,000 in the United States. [...] Tumpey also confirmed the 1918 virus's avian-like characteristics by injecting it in fertilized bird eggs. It killed the eggs, just like the Asian bird flu does. Other modern-day flu strains that are human-based don't kill fertilized bird eggs, he noted. [...] CNN The first lie is that they "made it from scratch". They baked this bad pie in a kidney with material they took from a corpse. The second lie is that they gave careful consideration to the risks. They never do this. The 'risk' is that it escapes and kills tens of millions of people. Anyone carefully considering this would never have undertaken this work, which has no guarantee of being useful for anything. Of course, they might get a prize for doing it. But thats 'never the motivation'. If this old flu escapes and I die, who do my relatives sue for compensation? These people have a subconcious malthusian urge to wipe out millions, or at the very least, love the power of handling something that can kill more people than any bomb, that they made 'from scratch'. I love the line about injecting it into an egg, and then asserting that it is 'avian like' because it killed the egg. If I inject vinegar into an egg, it will die. Does that make vinegar 'avian like'? That line just has to be a journalist misrepresentation. Look at the cool tools they use to do this work. They run UNIX. They make pretty pictures. I like pretty pictures. I like UNIX. Do you? Someone clever said: > They eliminated smallpox [who.int] from almost all laboratories a few years ago to make sure it could never be used again.

"Almost" doesn't cut it. And if you think the former Soviet Union (and former United States) really eliminated their last reserves of the virus, you're seriously deluded.

> Now they are reviving an old virus that was completely eradicated. This does not make sense, other than for the nobel-prize signs in the scientists eyes (which they should not get).

The 1918 pandemic strain killed off the most vulnerable portion of the population three or four generations ago. Subsequently, mutations to that strain that were less virulent than the original appeared. These less-virulent strains didn't kill their hosts as quickly (and often, didn't kill the host at all!), and turned out to be better-adapted to their environment than the original. These less-virulent strains worked their way throughout the rest of the population. The world ended up with a not-so-bad version of the flu, and a relatively high resistance in the surviving population. All in all, a lousy environment for the original or the less-virulent strains to propagate.

Don't worry about the 1918 flu getting out. First, it almost certainly won't. Second, if it does, it won't be nearly as bad as it was in 1918, largely due to the fact that anyone who was highly vulnerable to it had been ejected from the gene pool by 1920.

> I could name hundreds of things that could go wrong, and will not even start wildly speculating what would happen if 5HN1 somehow mutates with this virus.

Don't worry about an H5N1 recombination (or reassortment) with the 1918 flu. You'd need someone to be simultaneously infected with both viruses. The probability of that is vanishingly small. (As is the probability of the 1918 flu escaping and setting up a reservoir population in birds or pigs.)

Worry about a human-to-human transmissible evolution of H5N1. If the strain currently fiddling around Jakarta [recombinomics.com] is reproducing by means of human to human transmission, and if that strain is doing so via casual contact (to date, it appears that most cases from this cluster involve zoo visitors, their immediate families, and health care workers -- so we don't yet have confirmation of h2h transmission, let alone via casual contact), then worry.

If a human-to-human transmissible of H5N1 shows up, and if it's as lethal to humans as the version currently floating around Asia, you're looking at somewhere between 100M and 300M dead before a weaker variant evolves.

Its right in your face!

Bush Cites Military Takeover In Case Of Flu Outbreak

Paul Joseph Watson | October 4 2005

During this afternoon's White House press conference President Bush confirmed that he would attempt to impose military curfews and quarantines in case of a flu pandemic occurring in the United States.

The comes on the heels of a majority of the nation's governors rejecting the Bush administration's proposal to use active-duty military assets in providing disaster relief. Understanding this in the context of Hurricane Katrina, this means total gun confiscation and enforced evacuation at gunpoint.

Bush stated, "If we had an outbreak somewhere in the United States, do we not then quarantine that part of the country, and how do you then enforce a quarantine? When -- it's one thing to shut down airplanes; it's another thing to prevent people from coming in to get exposed to the avian flu. And who best to be able to effect a quarantine? One option is the use of a military that's able to plan and move."

CLICK HERE FOR THE AUDIO CLIP

This is the same justification that Bush used throughout the Hurricane Katrina debacle. The crisis was made worse by intentional federal sabotage of the relief efforts that were being conducted by the local government in New Orleans. FEMA were cutting communication lines and denying food, water and oil shipments to the critically affected areas. This led local Sheriffs to set up armed patrols to keep FEMA out of their county zones.

The elimination of Posse Comitatus via natural disasters which are then intentionally sabotaged by government, is one of the Bush administration's major goals. Bush has openly announced his plan to have the Pentagon usurp power over State's rights.

Posse Comitatus allows for the use of the military for relief efforts only, not for law enforcement. This is why Bush is trying to eliminate the 1878 law, because his ideal of military involvement in crises is one of quarantines, checkpoints, mandatory vaccinations, curfews and evacuations, and not of providing relief or infrastructure protection.

We have been warning for years that natural disasters would be used as a means of placing active duty military on the streets of America. People are not buying into the scam that we need a police state to fight Al-CIAda terrorists so this is the next step. Today it's hurricanes, in five to ten years it will be the threat of asteroids and meteors.

The message is the same, you have no right to protect yourself and we will confiscate your firearms if you even try. The truth is that throughout history government has never been able to adequately protect the people and to forcefully take that mantle only makes matters worse.

Is the threat of a bird flu pandemic a red flag or is it simply a means of creating a false scarcity so that everyone runs out and buys the antidote fearing an imminent outbreak?

We should be wise to remember that the revelation that the Bush cabinet was on Cipro, the anthrax fighting antibiotic, only emerged in the media after the anthrax attack was in process, not before.

Therefore it seems more likely that this is a ruse to line the pockets of the government affiliated pharmaceutical companies.

One thing is clear, if this outbreak did occur then the justification to suspend Constitutional rights will be flaunted to its maximum exposure. Back in April President Bush added pandemic influenza to the list of diseases for which quarantine is authorized.

China's zealous martial law tactics in dealing with SARS, home detention, curfews, mandatory vaccinations, restriction of travel, are the model for what could unfold in the US.

The federal blueprint for the exact same scenario was released and picked up by the Associated Press a year ago.

This will make ID cards and airport security checks look like a tea party.

And when this flu pandemic happens who will we blame? Surely not US scientists playing around with the deadly 1918 Spanish flu virus at "less than the maximum level of containment" according to the New Scientist magazine.

Bush's comments are clearly intended to acclimatize people to accept martial law in times of crisis caused by natural disasters or health pandemics.

With two more major hurricanes predicted to hit in October we should all remain vigilant and speak out against the government hijacking crises in order to implement their jack-booted police state agenda. [...]

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/october2005/041005militarytakeover.htm

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/10/04/bush.avianflu/index.html I saw this first on CNN, and then, as expected, it is better outlined in the first URL. Listen to the recording of W, the stumbling, mumbling, incoherent buffoon, advocating the complete dismantling of the USA. Never mind that the Katrina fiasco was just that - a fiasco - now he wants to duplicate it nation-wide. What should be done in the middle of an outbreak? Would stay at home advisories be enough, with information about affected areas disseminated to prevent the spread? Enforced quarantine, enforced vaccination...no one in their right mind likes the sound of that. And I wonder what the UK is cooking up as a response to this potential outbreak?!

The required eternal and rather tiresome vigilance

FIPR Press Release

For Immediate Release: Tuesday 3rd October 2005

Ministers Pushing EU Directive that will Harm Industry
------------------------------------------------------

The government is using the UK's presidency of the European Union to
push an intellectual property enforcement directive (IPRED) which will
harm British industry and undermine basic freedoms, according to
Internet think-tank the Foundation for Information Policy Research
(FIPR).

The directive will force the UK to make patent infringement a crime,
and will also criminalise incitement to infringe patents or copyrights.
It is being promoted by the big drug companies and the music industry.

If passed, the police will have more powers against copyright infringers
than they have against terrorists. At present, the EU cannot freeze
assets if a suspected terrorist financier is a European citizen. Yet the
Government wants to empower IP lawyers to seize the assets of EU
citizens accused of aiding and abetting infringement -- such as the
parents of children who might have downloaded music files.

Innovation will also lose out. A technology entrepreneur today has to
take risks with patents, as it's impossible to tell what patents might
be in the pipeline. If her business succeeds, she can afford to fight
legal cases and pay royalties if she loses. But if patent infringement
becomes a crime, then the risks involved in starting a technology firm
will be much greater. Britain will be at a particular disadvantage to
the USA, where patent infringement will remain a civil matter. It will
be very tempting for entrepreneurs to just start their businesses in
America instead.

The FIPR response to these proposals may be found at

  http://www.fipr.org/copyright/ipred2.html

******
  This issue is particularly topical because tomorrow (Wednesday) the
  Right Hon. Tessa Jowell MP, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and
  Sport, is launching the Creative Economy Conference in London. for
  details see   http://www.creativeeconomyconference.org
******


QUOTES

Said Ross Anderson, Chair of FIPR and Professor of Security Engineering
at Cambridge University

  "Whitehall spin-doctors are telling us that the Government will
  foster the creative industries, but the IPR Enforcement Directive
  will have exactly the opposite effect. It will interfere with
  enterprise and choke off competition. It will push up prices for
  consumers at a time of rising global inflation, and do particular
  harm to the software and communications industries. It will also harm
  universities, libraries and the disabled."

Said Terri Dowty, Director of Action on Rights for Children and member
of FIPR's Advisory Council:

  "We have already seen the kind of pressure that companies are
  prepared to exert on the parents of children who download music
  without due thought. We fear that they would not baulk at mounting
  criminal prosecutions of children.

  "It is monstrous that a ten-year old (or an eight-year old in
  Scotland) could be criminalised by the careless download of files.
  Children often assume that if something is available it must also be
  legitimate, and it is unreasonable to expect parents to monitor their
  every action -- and most will not have the specialist knowledge to
  understand whether or not a particular download will be a crime."

Said Nicholas Bohm, FIPR's General Counsel:

  "Criminalising patent and other IPR infringement could expose a range
  of business advisers (accountants, lawyers, bankers) to threats of
  prosecution as accessories if a company involved in a deal they were
  arranging or implementing was subject to an infringement complaint."

Something very beautiful

The 9rules Network is about building a community of high quality websites as well as a community of highly discerning readers. Content is king and looking good helps. We add sites that meet these rigorous standards and leave bribe money under our keyboards. Many people hear the word "weblog" and go running to Google to find weblogs on their favorite topics, but weeding through the crap to find the cream is a daunting task. Fortunately there are hundreds of thousands of great websites and weblogs that provide quality content, and our goal is to connect hungry readers with passionate writers so that they can live in harmony. The 9rules Network is about great content, and if any website/weblog/wiki produces that on a regular basis then who are we to filter them out. Passionate writers don't need to be tied down to vernacular. Great weblog. Great website. We don't discriminate. [...] http://9rules.com/about/ I came across this whilst looking for AJAX examples, and the way it looks It took my breath away. That hasn't happened in a long time. Its blackness, sharpness, clarity, crispness... it is perfection. Looks identical in Safari and Firefox....the bar is raised every day, and by extension, the need for specialists to pull something great off...depending how much time you have on your hands...then you can become that specialist you need. I had a chat with a talented developer this morning, who put it to me that working with the side of the brain that lets you programme causes the other side, the design side, to atrophy. I wonder how long it would take, after entering completely into the mindset of pure abstract logic, to return to the illogical thinking of the abstract.....hmmmm

'Its his yellow fucking fault'

A few days ago, I watched 'Day Of The Dead' in the middle of the night on...the BBQ. Twenty years ago, HM Customs were intercepting films like this, and confiscating them in the middle of the 'Video Nasty' hysteria. Someone who I knew personally, had his copy of 'Cannibal Ferox' confiscated en route from a supplier in Germany. My question is this; what is the difference between today and twenty years ago, that allows a film like 'Day Of The Dead' to be shown on state TV for nothing today, but makes a film like this illegal to buy on video uncut to watch in your own house? The people who wanted to sell films like this in their uncut state, ('Cannibal Holocaust', 'Cannibal Ferox', 'Cannibal Apolcalypse', 'Anthrophagous The Beast', 'Driller Killer' etc) were put out of or prevented from doing business, the people who wanted to watch them were denied service...for what? Now anyone can watch these same films on TV, without any restriction, and without any explanation as to why these films, all of a sudden, are suitable for display nation-wide, uncut. What is the difference between audiences today and twenty years ago, that allows people to watch zombies tear a mans head off? How has the nature of man altered so that he cannot be corrupted by seeing a soldier have his intestines ripped from his abdomen by zombies while he shouts, "CHOKE ON IT! CHOKE ON IIITTTTTT!!!". I put it to you that nothing has changed at all, and that you should have done everything you could to watch these movies uncut back then, including getting your tapes confiscated. Many people did do this, and built up good, illegal collections of gore, like 'Faces of Death (I, II, III, IV [banned in 56 countries]) and every other horror film you can imagine, by the great director Lucio Fulci Dario Argento, and all the others... The same goes for every banned word, book, recording or piece of ephemera. Because they forbid it, you are duty bound to collect it, read it, copy and disseminate it. The least of the reasons why you should do this is that in the end, twenty years down the line it will be shown to you as if it is completely normal, and you will have little or no enthusiasm for it. Do not wait for someone to stamp it as legitimate, take it and absorb its thrill right now.

Signatures and validation in action

Launchpad has a beautiful system of contract signing and email verification that is the model for online contract signing. You sign up with your email address, and the system sends you a confirmation email, containing a llink you have to click to register. Then you have the option to sign the policy document online. You upload your GnuPG fingerprint by pasting it into a form, then the system sends you a confirmation email with the body encrypted to your key. You decrypt the message and then click on the unique URL inside. This process confirms that the public key is actually yours. You can then clearsign the policy document (which is wrapped in 'pre' tags). You then paste this signed text into a form and the system checks the signature on it. If it matches, you are marked as having signed the agreement. This system could be extended to work with any contract that needs to be signed remotely, with 100% confidence that the signer is the person who she says she is. It also allows you to use any number of different unique keys that you want, but still be absolutely identified by the other signing party. Once again, a demonstration of why there is no need for centralized databases or unique numbers to identify people. You CAN have your cake and eat it.

Section 44 The new hip way to be 'sectioned'

When a slogan equals terrorism

Marcel Berlins Monday October 3, 2005 The Guardian Legally speaking, Walter Wolfgang's experience at the Labour party conference was even more bizarre than it first seemed. After being forcibly ejected he wanted to get back in but was stopped from doing so by the police, under section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000. I don't believe the police had any legal right to do what they did. I've been reading section 44 and it's absolutely clear that its purpose is to give the police the power to stop and search. Not just to stop someone, full stop. The stopping is only there to lead to the searching. But there is nothing I've seen in any of the reports to suggest that Mr Wolfgang was searched. If that's right, then the police were not entitled to use section 44. The whole act, as its title suggests, is specifically aimed at terrorism. Section 45 says that authorisation to carry out a section 44 stop and search "may be exercised only for the purpose of searching for articles of a kind which could be used in connection with terrorism". So even had a search been authorised and carried out, it would probably have been illegal. Whoever decided to use the Terrorism Act to stop Mr Wolfgang from returning to the hall didn't know what he was doing - but achieved the objective. Another protesting octogenarian felt the brush of section 44 last week, though he was searched. John Catt was wearing a T-shirt proclaiming "Bush Blair Sharon to be tried for war crimes torture human rights abuse" and, lower down, "the leaders of rogue states". The stop-and-search form filled out by the police officer stated, under grounds for intervention, "carrying plackard [sic] and T-shirt with anti-Blair info". The purpose of the stop and search was stated as "terrorism". So now we know. For the Sussex police, at any rate, an anti-Blair slogan is a ground for suspecting terrorism. There is obviously a problem in the use of section 44. It was used prolifically against protesters around the Brighton conference centre. I am sure Sussex are not the only force using section 44 essentially as a tool of control. The police know very well that the vast majority of the people they're stopping have absolutely no hint of a suspicion of any link with terrorism. But the Terrorism Act is all they've got, they argue, to ensure that gatherings like party conferences and G8 meetings go off smoothly. When Tony Blair and Charles Clarke tell the chief constable of Sussex that they want no trouble at their conference, and if that can only be achieved by wrongly using the anti-terrorism laws to stifle freedom of expression, freedom of movement and the right to protest - tough. That is not the way a democratic state should behave. But don't just blame the police for exceeding their powers. The government is conniving at every stage. [...] http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,,1583439,00.html This is all well and good; you have reported something that is terribly wrong, pointed out that this is not how a democracy works and have pushed all the correct moral outrage buttons... BUT You have failed to:

point anyone in any direction whatsover.

failed to give a pledge of your own that if you are 'sectioned' you will refuse to obey and then sue.

failed to encourage others to disobey this insane legislation.

If you are not going to do any of these, then you must not write about this subject again. Plain reporting of the facts in matters like these is betrayal, connivance, complicity, cooperation and treason. You must either take a stand or stand down. Also, total shame on the Guardian fordrinking the sour breast milk of the tobacco accusations against Clarke. Even if he did accidnetally or deliberately mislead, so what? The only thing that matters is that there is an opposition that can depose the murderous lapdogs in number 10...that is, if you still believe that democracy as it runs today is worthwhile. Clarke has done nothing anywere near as bad as taking an entire nation to war on a lie, and murdering innocent people for no reason at all. If you want to play the accusation game, at least find someone to poke with your stick that is demonstrably evil, of which there are plenty in the cabinet right now.

INFLATION-THEORY IMPLICATIONS FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL VISITATION

It has recently been argued that anthropic reasoning applied to inflation theory reinforces the prediction that we should find ourselves part of a large, galaxy-sized civilisation, thus strengthening Fermi’s paradox concern- ing “Where are they?” Furthermore, superstring and M-brane theory allow for the possibility of parallel universes, some of which in principle could be habitable. In addition, discussion of such exotic transport concepts as “traversable wormholes” now appears in the rigorous physics literature. As a result, the “We are alone” solution to Fermi’s paradox, based on the constraints of earlier 20th century viewpoints, appears today to be inconsistent with new developments in our best current physics and astrophysics theories. Therefore we reexamine and reevaluate the present assumption that extraterrestrials or their probes are not in the vicinity of Earth, and argue instead that some evidence of their presence might be found in certain high-quality UFO reports. This study follows up on previous arguments that (1) interstellar travel for advanced civilizations is not a priori ruled out by physical principles and therefore may be practicable, and (2) such advanced civilisations may value the search for knowledge from uncontaminated species more than direct, interspecies communica- tion, thereby accounting for apparent covertness regarding their presence. Keywords: Fermi paradox, extraterrestrial hypothesis, extraterrestrial visitation, UFO phenomenon, Condon Report, SETI [...] http://www.ufoskeptic.org/JBIS.pdf