November 30, 2003
'Ain't Done Yet': With Gritty Determination, Amputees Return to Active Duty
...(H)ome," to these soldiers, may be that small combat unit, where values like honesty and responsibility take on real, everyday meaning. Where the terrifying violence of war sears friendships into bonds difficult for outsiders to penetrate or comprehend.
"It's their known world," says Joseph Miller, chief prosthetist at Walter Reed.
Out among civilians, the amputees, with their artificial limbs, draw stares. Not so in the refuge of the platoon, the company, the battalion. "When you're around a bunch of guys who've been in combat, it's not such a big deal," says Pfc. David Jatich, 19, one of Stewart's buddies at Fort Benning... Story
Number of 'Nones', Those Who Claim No Religion, Swells in U.S.
Their numbers have more than doubled in a decade, to nearly 30 million. Organized as a religious denomination, they would trail only Catholics and Baptists in members.
They are the "nones," named for their response to a question in public opinion polls: "What is your religion, if any?" Story via: Eschaton
November 29, 2003
November 28, 2003
Student Accused of Jamming Police Radio With Porn
Rajib K. Mitra, 25, (U. of W. Madison, Go Wombats!) replaced police radio frequencies on Halloween night with a steady tone that jammed the transmission over a large part of the city. And on Nov. 11, he used a pornographic film soundtrack, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim O'Shea said.
Mitra, 25, has been released on bail to his suburban Milwaukee parents with a number of unusual conditions. Mitra's father, Samir, an anesthesiologist, had to install a combination-lock padlock on the door of his office, which holds the only computer in the family's home.
Mitra is also prohibited from using wireless or cellular phones, and was ordered not to take apart any household appliances and not to use any device that could otherwise send or receive electronic messages... Story
---This man's crime is not that unusual, (in these 'war on terrorism' times he's lucky he isn't being charged with more serious offenses), the conditions for his bail however are worth noting. From prohibitions on travel & activity, acquaitances, substances; the law can now specify what appliances an offender might use.
Like sex offenders on probation who can't be within a quarter mile of a school there are hackers who can't use cell phones, be left alone with a modem?
News Images
---Seeing these news-photos, as thumbnails in an array, they look like caricatures of people, places & events, not the definitive historical documents we take them to be.
The War is Coming Home
Heavy-handed Police and Propaganda Tactics Brought Baghdad to Miami
"...Jim Wilkinson, director of strategic communications at U.S. Central Command in Doha, Qatar, (the operation that gave the world the Jessica Lynch rescue), has moved to New York to head up media operations for the Republican National Convention. "We're looking at embedding reporters," he told the New York Observer of his plans to use some of the Iraq tricks during the convention. "We're looking at new and interesting camera angles."
Article; from Joerg who's photos are archived at Conscientious
November 27, 2003
Anti-Semitism and Europe
"The right-wing in Israel describes every criticism of the country as a form of anti-Semitism. It is very convenient for the present government - which is the most right-wing in Israel's history and headed by a prime minister who has not taken the smallest initiative in the direction of a diplomatic effort in the peace process - to blame everything on anti- Semitism. [...] Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has a long record in defining Israeli critics as disloyal. Any attempt to make the current government and its very questionable policies invincible to legitimate criticism should be wholly rejected." - Yaron Ezrahi, professor of political science at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem
Read more opinions on whether or not Europe has become more anti-Semitic here
PS: Funny nobody ever mentions anti-Semitism in the US. As if it didn't exist there.
Again
Army Denies Throats of G.I.'s Were Cut
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 24 Confusion swirled Monday as a United States military official retracted his earlier report that the throats of two American soldiers had been slashed during an attack on Sunday in the northern city of Mosul.
The official, who said he was receiving his information from written military records, said that the two soldiers had died of gunshot wounds to the head, and that their bodies had been pulled from their car by Iraqis and robbed of their personal belongings. Contrary to initial accounts on Sunday from Mosul, he said the bodies of the men had not been mutilated or pummeled with rocks. Story
---In June should we assume journalists and newswires likewise will be reporting that the democratization of Iraq has been achieved right on schedule?
Evangelicals Outraged Over Bush's "Same God" Remark
Many Evangelical Christians in the U.S. say they are outraged over President George Bush's statement that Christians and Muslims worship the same God. Story via: Unknown News
---Is what they have contagious?
Man Accused Of Videotaping Neighbors In Shower
POSTED: 12:06 p.m. EST November 25, 2003
SALT LAKE CITY -- A Utah man has made a surprising discovery in his bathroom.
He was fixing a bathroom fan in his Salt Lake City apartment when he found a small hidden camera -- aimed at the tub and shower.
He asked police to check it out. They found the wires led into the adjoining apartment.
Police also found a monitor in the 52-year-old neighbor's apartment, with a live video and audio feed.
The neighbor had no explanation for the camera and wires. Police arrested him on suspicion of burglary and lewdness.
---What was that Sharon Stone/urban-paranoia movie? Slither? Sliver? Shiver?
It featured more stalking than wanking, while I'm assuming the opposite is true (for both sides of the wall) in the above. Salt Lake City?
November 26, 2003
The Hatch Spirit: It's all a question on how you word it
"Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch said Tuesday he had put one of his staffers on administrative leave for improperly obtaining data from the secure computer networks of two Democratic senators."
story
If you replaced "data" with "music" and modified the people in there - to include the RIAA - you'd be quite familiar with the kinds of rants about how people who copy music are the worst criminals ever etc. Maybe we all jst need to re-word this a little bit - in what I want to call the "Hatch Spirit". Let's not say"stal" any longer. Let's say "to improperly obtain".
Oh, and isn't this all coming from the same guy who suggested to destroy the computers of people who improperly obtain music? Here's part of that older story (found here):
[QUOTE]"I'm interested," Hatch interrupted. He said damaging someone's computer "may be the only way you can teach somebody about copyrights." The senator, a composer who earned $18,000 last year in song writing royalties, acknowledged Congress would have to enact an exemption for copyright owners from liability for damaging computers. He endorsed technology that would twice warn a computer user about illegal online behavior, "then destroy their computer." "If we can find some way to do this without destroying their machines, we'd be interested in hearing about that," Hatch said. "If that's the only way, then I'm all for destroying their machines. If you have a few hundred thousand of those, I think people would realize" the seriousness of their actions, he said.
"There's no excuse for anyone violating copyright laws," Hatch said.[END OF QUOTE]
US Babies Get Global Brand Names
Children have been named after big brands as diverse as beauty company L'Oreal, car firm Chevrolet and designer clothes company Armani.
There are even two little boys, one in Michigan and one in Texas, called ESPN after the sports channel.
Psychology professor Cleveland Evans discovered the trend after surveying US social security records for 2000. Story
via: ConscientiousJoerg
---Just like my daughter Dalkon & son Trojan!
Sense of Place
---This graphic is featured on the frontpage of Headwaters News.
Newspapers conventionally were named after political parties. Could this identification with a geological feature be an example of how North American's respond to the absence of high culture?
Headwater's reader's accept the Rocky Mtns. as a (symbolic?) source of news, as a way information should be organized much like their parents & grandparents looked to their clubs and political parties?
We might not know how our European/Asian/African grandparents lived and died, who they read & studied, but we've walked the Appalachian Trail. We'll never produce a Goethe, and couldn't care less what he has to say, but we've been to Death Valley.
We don't have history, we've got geography?
The Ultimate On-the-Fly Network
How a flock of reclusive seabirds became pioneers of pervasive computing. A case study from the sensor net frontier.
"Take a sensor, any sensor. The one embedded in the seat of your car, for example, which determines that you're present and that your seat belt should therefore be fastened and your air bag on alert. This sensor performs the same function in the same way on every outing. Powered along with the car's other electrical devices by a battery that's regularly charged, it gathers and dispenses information that travels no farther than a few feet. That's easy.
Now, what if the sensor wasn't stationary and had to transmit information over great distances; if it was required to handle multiple tasks, had no nearby power source, and wasn't readily accessible for repairs? All this would pose significant technical challenges. Nevertheless, researchers in recent years have faced down these constraints to make sensor networks a reality.
An Intel R&D team at UC Berkeley has led the way. Directed by David Culler, the hybrid "lablet" is on the verge of overcoming two great obstacles. First, communications. Scattered in large numbers out of easy reach, environmental sensors must work together, pooling skimpy radio-transmission resources and maintaining the network without human intervention. The solution: ad hoc, self-organizing, multi-hop networking, whereby each small instrument has the capacity to find and then pass messages to its neighbors... Article
---Do check out on page 2 the "Field Guide to Remote Sensing" to see how far the tech's gotten.
Motes & lablets are changing ideas about mapping; from visual representations of primarily physical landscapes and forms to (visual, data, aural, etc.) representations of sensory landscapes or events. Spaces & places will never be the same.
November 25, 2003
Apples & Oranges?
If royalty is the systematization of incest is it germane to analogize: as gays are to the political left, incest is to the political right?
Top Ten
most wanted fugitives according the latest FBI info.
btw... Usama Bin Laden is considered armed and extremely dangerous and his occupation is currently "unkown."
also, check out the banal weirdness of the real video of Robert William Fisher walking down the street.
Aeschylus Meets the Mummy
A 2,500-year-old trilogy written by Greek dramatist Aeschylus (525-456 B.C.), which was thought lost to time, was discovered among the stuffing inside an Egyptian mummy. The plays will be performed next summer by THOC, the national theatre of Cyprus. The production will then travel to Greece...
Scholars knew of the drama from references made by Aristophanes and other writers, but believed it burned up in 48 B.C. with the famous Library of Alexandria. But archaeologists found sections of the text inside a mummy, which Egyptians often filled out with papyrus. Item
New Technology Grants Virtual Adventure to All
A room is being built in the Envision Center in Stewart Center (Purdue University) called the CAVE, which is a 10 foot by 10 foot cube that projects images in stereo. With special glasses, this room gives the appearance of actually experiencing a virtual reality, said Gary Bertoline, associate vice president for discovery at ITaP.
"The CAVE is a special device used to view computer graphics in stereo," said Bertoline. "They look suspended in the air."
The CAVE utilizes four projection units that project computer graphic images from behind the walls of the room, allowing total three-dimensional immersion in the environment.
"The realism is so great that it’s not uncommon for people to start walking and forget there are corners," Bertoline said.
The CAVE uses a special technology which projects two images, one for each eye and a special pair of glasses allows three-dimensional interpretations of the images, said Dwight Mckay, technical architect for the Envision Center.
"The CAVE allows you to display a model at a human scale, which means that if you put a table in there virtually, it looks like a real table, or if you put in the model of a building, you could experience it just how it would be," he said.
The main use of the CAVE will be research, said Bertoline. With the technology, it is possible to create a three dimensional model of something to look at from all angles. The model of a car could be put in and examined from every angle, just as it would be if it were real. Things can be done with the CAVE, which could never be done before, said Mckay.
"A flight simulator is an example of a very specific virtual environment," said Mckay, "The CAVE is a general purpose tool for making specific environments."
In addition to using the CAVE to look at architectural or structural models, other programs can be used as well. An abstract environment can be created with a three dimensional plot of statistical information. Using a pair of special gloves and what Mckay called a "TV remote control on steroids," images and figures can be manipulated, moved and enlarged, giving the CAVE a "Minority Report" feel... Story
via: Jason, who projects images into windows at Atom Grid
See also: Dan Sandin's The CAVE Virtual Reality System and/or the Electronic Visualization Laboratory's The CAVE Virtual Reality Theater
Kabul Reconstructions
Kabul: Reconstructions is a video installation and public dialogue project that explores the many different meanings and resonances of the idea of reconstruction in the context of the city of Kabul. These include its use in bureaucratic jargon to refer to large-scale social and economic redevelopment projects, which are set up by government agencies and NGOs with the intent of altering the infrastructure of the country's administration, production and regulation; its local translation into the literal renovations and new constructions undertaken by individuals as they seek to rebuild the physical city; and for those of us who are Afghans outside Afghanistan, its significance as the process by which we piece together an image of this place and these people from the scraps of information assembled through mass media transmissions, the memories preserved in expatriate family stories and traditions, and personal communications from friends and family on the inside.
The web-based component of Kabul:Reconstructions is intended to open up to the general public some of those private lines of insider-outsider communication... Kabul Reconstructions via: Rhizome
---Compare & contrast the insider-outsider communications from the other side of the world to the local reconstructions promised in your newspapers. See what the world media writes about Afghanistan. Learn what matters to the residents & exiles of a terrorist state.
ASK A QUESTION.
City hopes talking trash cans will discourage litter
More from the we're-all-idiots department.
Disclaimer: Yours truly is German.
"Keeping Watch for Interstellar Computer Viruses"
I think somebody really needs to get a life here. With scientists like these no surprise the public thinks we're all hopeless idiots.
Disclaimer: Yours truly is working as a scientist.
International Guantanamo Bay
"Scarcely a week goes by that some country doesn't send an interrogation squad to Guantanamo. Since the prison camp was opened a little less than two years ago, the military base has turned into a kind of Grand Central Station for secret service agents from all over the world. Turkish secret service agents (MIT) have already been there; the British were there three times in six months. Experts from the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the German secret service (BND) have also visited the interrogation camp. One key request is made of the visitors: discreet silence about what they have seen and heard."
story
November 24, 2003
How to define anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism: Any criticism of Israel. Regardless of what Israel is doing. Says Israel's leader. Now that makes things fairly easy, doesn't it?
Bullet Matching Method at FBI Lab Is Flawed
WASHINGTON -- The National Academy of Sciences has concluded a technique the FBI has used for decades to match bullets to crimes is flawed...
Story
November 23, 2003
Give a Hoot, Don't Pollute
Could pedophilia be the engine that drives the sex industry?
From which schools did call-girls, rent-boys and porn-stars graduate?
According to 60 Minutes, "more people watch porn than sporting events". Do we owe Chester the Molester a debt of gratitude, or are freedom loving swingers simply engaging in free trade?
(I can be enraged by stories of cruelty to animals yet pleased by the understanding that "what I do in Vegas stays in Vegas".)
Top Ten Internet Fads
"A fad, for purposes of this article, is an idea or technology which is briefly popular, but can't outlast its own novelty value. Once people get over the newness of it all, there isn't really anything special left. Here are the ten which stand out most in my mind..."
---"Most of these things seem more like personal beefs that a person might discredit by affixing the "fad" label.
I would've put desktop videoconferencing on the list. Any web-based social application. The brief primacy of Netscape. The brief primacy of Yahoo.
And all those AT&T "You Will" ads from about a decade ago." ---Jason aka 'Atom Grid'
Half-Naked Man Faces Net Charge
TORONTO -- A half-naked man found driving on a city street was arrested and charged with child porn offences this week in the first Canadian case involving wireless Internet signal piracy...
Investigation showed the man had hooked into a wireless computer network at a nearby house to gain access to a resident's Internet connection and download images from child pornography websites.
The scheme, known as "war driving," allows a computer with wireless Internet capability to tap into a wireless home network and access the World Wide Web, usually without fear of discovery.
"We have never laid a (war driving-related) charge before," Det.-Sgt. Paul Gillespie said yesterday.
"And I'm not aware of any similar charges being laid in Canada," Gillespie said.
Story
See also: "First Charge in Canada for WiFi 'Theft of Telecommunications'" archived at Politech
"...It raises some questions for Wi-Fi users in Canada: If you find an open Wi-Fi network and jack in, can you be charged with theft in the absence of a complaint from the owner of those services or even knowledge by the police that your access was unauthorized?
One lawyer we interviewed believes that individuals who knowingly leave their networks open for any to use could, in some circumstances, find themselves legally liable if the network is used for an illegal purpose!.."
Jack BibbyResearchers: Catholic Donations on Track
(AP) — At the height of the crisis over child molesters in the priesthood, studies of rank-and-file Roman Catholics predicted a donor revolt. But nearly two years into the scandal, survey suggest that the rebellion bishops feared never fully materialized....
Catholics "may be angry at bishops, but they say, 'I love my parish and I love my pastor and I know the parish needs money to keep the lights on,'" said Mary Gautier, a senior researcher at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, who has collected donor data for three years. Story
---Pure pr puffery. Since no Archdiocese will open it's books to an outside audit there's no way to check on any of this. One might wonder why the Church finds it necessary (before Christmas?) to insist that the pedophile-protecting Bishops did no harm to its bottom line?
7th Grader Suspended Over 'Hit List'
PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) — A seventh-grader who compiled what officials call a "hit list" of students and faculty members he wanted dead has been indefinitely suspended from school.
No charges were filed because there was no direct threat on the list, but an investigation is continuing into the unidentified student, said Norm Ross, Escambia County's deputy superintendent of schools.
Ross said officials could decide by Monday whether to recommend the student be expelled.
A student and a parent on Wednesday reported the incident at Bellview Middle School to a sheriff's deputy at the suburban Pensacola school.
Principal Steve Marcanio said he contacted the parents of the nine students on the list to inform them of the situation and fielded about a dozen calls Friday from concerned parents. Three faculty members were also on the list, Ross said.
Jury Finds Professor Liable for Sexual Harassment
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A jury found a West Chester (Pennsylvania) University professor liable for sexually harassing a student in an encounter captured by a hidden camera the student was carrying.
Former student Jurgita Pociute was awarded $120,000 on Thursday for sexual harassment and emotional distress inflicted by Jamal Ghoroghchian, a former chairman of the university's chemistry department. The federal court jury absolved the university of liability.
Pociute said Ghoroghchian repeatedly offered to trade sexual favors for better grades.
To try to catch him in the act, she rented a tiny video camera from a private detective and concealed it in a notebook.
In a video shot Jan. 26, 2001, and shown to jurors, Pociute caught Ghoroghchian's hand going toward her breast. Ghoroghchian denied any wrongdoing, but said he might have inadvertantly touched Pociute's breast.
The university earlier had found Ghoroghchian in violation of its sexual-harassment policy and, according to court records, gave him a confidential letter of reprimand and ordered him to attend a private training session on sexual harassment.
A university representative declined to comment on the verdict.
Information from: The Philadelphia Daily News
November 22, 2003
Bush Prepared to Meet With Dead Troops' Familes in England but Not in America
Details of Mr Bush's meeting with the families are being kept secret for security reasons, but it is expected to take place at the end of the week at an undisclosed location in London....
Quite how his meeting the families of British servicemen killed in Iraq will be perceived at home is unclear: the President has not attended the funerals of any of the American troops killed. Nor has he visited any of the thousands of injured troops who have returned to the US.
---Bad form Mr. President, bad form.
November 21, 2003
Quote of the day
"The handbag issue is just one of a number of gender sensitive problems we experience." - Amina Abdullah, MP in Kenya
George W. Bush Loves Michael Jackson
" A number of explosions tore through the British consulate in Turkey today, killing scores of people. George W. Bush is in England, surrounded on all sides by enraged British citizens whose massive protests have required nearly every police officer in London to be put on the line of defense. [...]
" It is 3:16 p.m. on Thursday afternoon as I write this. CNN has been covering, with total exclusivity, a parking lot outside a police station for the last hour. They covered an airplane landing. They covered the same airplane sitting still on the tarmac. They covered the airplane slowly moving into a hangar. All the while, talking head after talking head explored every conceivable facet of the parking lot, the plane, the tarmac, and the hangar, as well as a variety of parallel issues. No stone of data was left unturned.
"Why? Michael Jackson is about to surrender to police."
story
Static Subjectivity
The Falling Man -- an amazing must-read article from the september issue of esquire magazine, chronicling the making of a photograph on 9/11 and the search for the identity of the subject. it covers all the thematic bases of photography: document, symbol, utility, horror, sentiment and memory -- and, like most writing on the subject, fails to conclude much of anything. what is it about photography that continues to elude knowing? and why is that so poignant?
Roadside Memorials
Also"...Made from everything from Styrofoam to PVC piping, roadside memorials now blanket our highways. Most are simple white crosses that say little. Others, huge 8x8 wood beams that tell the story. Some leave poems, others photographs. Although most seem to be children in the prime of life, age has not been prejudice. Devastating, unsuspecting death is the only common denominator.
The cause is not the purpose of this photographic documentary. It really does not matter why or how it happened. This documentation is not about political issues, it's about death, and what is left behind. Young wives without husbands, parents without a child, children without parents..."
MoreBehind America's Rush to Memorialize Death
"...The ground zero plan is confirming on a grand scale what scholars have identified as an important cultural shift toward a new type of public remembering. Tragic death sites, it seems, are becoming permanent shrines to the lost individuals in order to prove that violence has not prevailed. It's a trend Americans are appropriating to some degree from European traditions. And it's controversial, memorial scholars say, because such sites also risk glamorizing mass killing and making death the defining moment of life.
"This is one of the major, major cultural trends of our time," says Edward Linenthal, a professor of religion and American culture and a memorial expert at the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh. "It's a way of protesting the anonymity of mass death in our time..."
Article
---When this link expires see the writings of James E. Young and the syllabus & required reading for the course the Politics of Traumatic Memory for a sense of what this article is about.
Letters to Roy
We Will be Thinking of You
Enjoyed Your Show 62 Times
We Pray for You
I Pray for a Fast and Painless Recovery
This City Loves You Both
You Have Created Some of the Best Memories
I Have Been So Affected...
An Old Friend From the Past
It Now All Becomes Clear...
Millions of Tears Have Been Shed
I Have Been Glued to the TV
The News of Your Injury Was a Shock
I'M Sure They Miss You
All Accidents Take Time
Greeting From Florida
We Would Dearly Love to Meet You
I Have Always Admired You...
My Mom Met Your Once
I Know You Will Pull Through
I am Just One of Thousands...
I've Seen the Show 25 Times
It Brings Us Pure Joy to See You
I Have Never Seen Your Show
You Made My Daughter's Birthday Special
My Heart Has Been Heavy
Message From England
I am Sure if Montecore Could Talk...
Get Well Dear Brother
We Want to Thank You
We Miss You
I am Also a Cat Lover
I Look Forward to Your Speedy Recovery
My Husband and I Were Horrified
Press On Roy
I Was Deeply Shocked and Saddened
May God Keep You in His Hands
We Still Need You
We Are Proud to Have You as Part of Our City
Keep Fighting
I Have Enjoyed Your Show
This is a Terrible Tragedy
We Know Your Are a Fighter
I Wish You a Speedy Recovery
I Think of You Every Day
I Have Been to Your Show 5 Times
We Are Praying For All of You
I Hope You Return to the Cats
Praying For You
Greetings From British Columbia
Our Thoughts and Prayers Are With You
We Send Our Best Wishes
I Know Your Are a Strong Man
I'm Praying for You
Letters to Roy of Siegfried & Roy
(Also allows you to send an Email to Roy)
"Your message will be forwarded directly to the Sercret Garden at The Mirage. Eyewitness News may read portions of the emails sent to us on the air."
The "United States of America" is a stupid thing to name a country
"The "United States of America" isn't really a name in the first place, but more of a description of what the thing, which -- although possibly a fitting punishment for the nation that gave birth to legalese -- is really really stupid in my book. I mean, have you ever heard of the "Big Chunk of Jungle Once Claimed by Portugal" or "Bunch of Islands off the Eastern Coast of Asia" or "Boot-shaped European Peninsula Nation that Surrounds this Other Little Country where the Pope Lives"?
"So what should we call it? Well, I've got some ideas but I'm open to suggestions. Here's what I've come up with so far:
-
The Burning Dawn
Khazar-Ikhmem
Malaguena
South Canada
Ashtaria
Solstine
Sverquais
The Republic of Vengeance
"And that took me like a minute to write, but it's still better than anything this country has come up with in 225 years. "
November 20, 2003
Dear Mr President/George/George W Bush/...
Now here's an idea: Ask 60 British and American people to write a letter to the US president while he's on his state visit to the UK. Note how they managed to get this whole thing fairly balanced, eh?
Looks like US media could learn a bit from this and, just to add this, asking people on the street, stuffing a mike under their nose, for some sort of unqualified 10 seconds of nonsense doesn't quite do the job, thank yer very much indeed.
Sample:
"Dear Mr President,
want you to know two things: that most British people like America and Americans, and that a lot of those people who like Americans and America don't like the way you've been treating Europe and the world.
"Anti-Americanism exists. At a very rough guess, perhaps one in 20 British people, and one in five of those demonstrating against you, are in some meaningful sense "anti- American", though most of them would deny it. But even among those demonstrating against you, four out of five are not. They're not anti- American; they're anti-Bush.
"Many of them, let's be frank, were against you the day you became president. So were many Americans. About half of them, in fact. Liberal Europeans always have problems with rightwing Republican presidents, and you got off to a bad start with a series of arrogant, unilateralist acts. (You know the score: not signing the Kyoto agreement, not joining the International Criminal Court, etc. )
"There was, however, a huge outpouring of sympathy after the 9/11 attacks. London was in tears for New York. There was sympathy and support for your measured reaction, up to and including the campaign against al-Qaida in Afghanistan. But then you blew it again, right royally. You blew it with your one-sided support for the Sharon government in its war against the Palestinians. What was presented as part of the cure for Islamist terrorism in fact worsened the disease - because the Israel- Palestine conflict is one of the causes of Islamist terrorism. And you blew it with Iraq. Where are those weapons of mass destruction? Where is the occupation-led democracy, as a beacon for the rest of the wider Middle East?
"In a year's time, Americans will vote for a new president. Most of the people on the streets of London, whether actively demonstrating or privately muttering, are not against America; they just want the other America. Think of them as Democrats, casting an early overseas vote.
"Yours sincerely,
Timothy Garton Ash
Writer and fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford"
and another one:
"Dear George,
"Thank you for the leadership that you have given to the free world. Your father's decision not to topple Saddam in 1991 started a decade in which America looked weak, and unwilling to defend itself and its values. Escalating terrorism from al-Qaida went unpunished, encouraging further outrages. It was not American arrogance that led up to 9/11, but American feebleness. In parallel, Saddam came to represent the most successful defiance of the US and of the UN by a rogue state.
"It is regrettable that Tony Blair misled you into thinking that he could deliver Mr Schröder, Mr Chirac and Mr Putin to vote for a UN resolution. The PM does, I am afraid, have delusions of grandeur. Unfortunately, the doomed strategy of making weapons of mass destruction the cause of war has discredited the war in the UK. You did better to say frankly that you wanted to remove the Saddam regime which so brutalised its people and destabilised the region.
"Through you I would like to thank the American people for the sacrifice of lives that they have made, and for the billions of dollars of their money that has been voted to rebuild Iraq. We appreciated your words recognising the sacrifice made by British families.
"Please do renew your efforts on the Middle East roadmap. The terrorists there can now be in no doubt that they will not win using violence. That is the necessary pre-condition for achieving peace, which with your commitment is within grasp.
"Congratulations on organising your own security while in Britain. You may have noticed that our policemen could not protect the Royal family from a joker dressed as Osama bin Laden who walked into Windsor Castle. I don't think you could have relied on them to protect you against the real thing.
"Yours sincerely
Michael Portillo
Conservative MP"
President Bush speaks at the dedication of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship's Youth Education Center in Dallas, Texas, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2003. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak) [source]
About double standards
"Tony Blair and George Bush have spoken of their joint determination to defeat terrorism after bomb attacks in Turkey. [...] The perpetrators had 'utter contempt' for innocent lives, said the US president at a news conference held to mark his state visit to Britain." (story)
Number of Iraqi civlians killed during US/British invasion (that violated international law and is thus, following the logic of that law [set up by US, Britain et al. after WWII] a war crime): 7898-9729
Number of Iraqi civilians killed in occupied Baghdad (until 23 Sept): 1500
Amount of goodwill lost (especially) in the Islamic world by double standards like these: impossible to estimate
Number of new terrorists recruited in Islamic countries by double standards like these: ditto
Googling
The internet is filling up with images -- the two sites below offer interesting ways to explore some of the more vernacular and consumptive, using google to track them down.
the googlehouse: is an online process that builds a house with images of domestic rooms (living room, tv room...) picked up on the internet using an image search engine.
random personal picture finder: all this thing does is create a random number and slap it into a filename that has the structure used by default in a few different digital cameras.
California High School Braces for Mock Assault, Defense
We do lockdown drills regularly," (Livingstone California Highschool) Principal Robert Wendel said. "We feel the need to take it one step further, so the police can see how things work on campus and how to move about."
Kathleen Luxon has a daughter, Julie, who is a senior at Livingston High. "I think it's a good thing," Luxon said of the drill. "I think the kids always need to be prepared on how to handle a situation if it happens."
She said having the lockdown is no different than a fire drill or "duck and cover" exercises meant to show children how to protect themselves in earthquakes and nuclear attacks.
"I feel that Livingston is a very safe school," Luxon said. "We would hate for something like this to happen and not be prepared for it."
Police Chief Bill Eldridge said: "We're not doing this out of fear or paranoia. After Columbine, we can no longer say, it won't happen to us."
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---For today's students, in these most perilous times, being under siege is a worthwhile, perhaps necessary, learning experience. There aren't enough hours in the school year for children to learn the relationship between their needs & desires and those of the authorities. I wonder who in the Senior Class will be voted most likely to be the 1st one killed in any hostage situation?
Hidden Camera Reveals Police On the Job
The case centers around a hidden video camera installed by James Walton in his one-room makeshift home near Ripon. The camera captured the scene Nov. 7, 2002, when police officers burst in and ordered him to put his hands on his head.
The 90-second video, grainy even after being enhanced by the FBI, shows Walton complying, but two officers -- Manteca Detectives Samuel Gallego and Steven Harris -- continue to curse him and order him to cooperate.
After the handcuffed Walton makes a sarcastic remark, he is pushed backward onto a bed. Gallego pulls his gun and points it at Walton's head and says, "We can kill you right here."
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---Law-enforcement (sic) is like sausages. It's better not to see how sausages are made, either. (From Otto von Bismarck)
Media Carta Manifesto
WE HAVE LOST CONFIDENCE in what we are seeing, hearing and reading: too much infotainment and not enough news; too many outlets telling the same stories; too much commercialism and too much hype. Every day, this commercial information system distorts our view of the world.read on
WE HAVE LOST FAITH in the institutions of the mass media. A handful of corporations now control more than half the information networks around the world. At a time when people worldwide face hunger, social disruption, war and ecological collapse, only those who know how to walk the walk, talk the talk or pay big bucks are getting their message across.
WE HAVE LOST HOPE that our national media regulators will act in the public interest. Essential rules limiting media ownership and concentration are being scrapped, while rules protecting local content and access are diluted.
WE HAVE LOST PATIENCE waiting for reform.
WE IMAGINE A DIFFERENT SYSTEM...
via neural.it