October 31, 2004
Democrats Out-Gunning GOP in E-mail Wars
In the closing weeks of a tight presidential race, the Democratic National Committee has been out-e-mailing its Republican counterpart, a research team of University of Washington students has found.
article
~The internet is many different things to many different kinds of people.
I'ld like to see a report comparing Democrat vs GOP bias in church sermons, church study groups, church invited speakers, and the kinds of pamphlets/ voting recommendations passed out through church affiliation, The houses of God trump Windows big-time.
Just the other day on public tv our local 'Prince of the Church' said in no uncertain terms that homosexuality is a 'moral issue'. He couldn't say otherwise and still have a job, but did he have to sound so certain, as if he didn't have any gay priest friends? Did he have to say anything? Hypocrite.
Then again, having one's very existence defined as a moral issue by some of the most powerful people and institutions in society might be giving this group of people, any group of people, a little too much credit, influence, weight, or juice.
I bet there's lots of gay assholes who are getting away with everything short of murder because of the moral majority's insistence that homosexuality is immoral.
Why bother trying to be a decent human, a good person, a mensch, when according to the moral-religious leaders of society one's very being is anathema to the Creator's will?
What an awful judgement to burden millions of Americans with.
You would think a politician/celebrity/Al Sharpton-type person could start a media-fueled foundation just on the idea that nobody has the right to talk about fellow Americans, my and your neighbors, that way? It doesn't matter how many cathedrals, how much tax-free real-estate those so called moral leaders own or control.
Jesus hates your desire? God damns your love?
I'm might be an asshole, but I'll never be an asshole who's everyday existence is a moral quandary.
added new photos at NASA Photo Analysis: Bush Wore a Device During Debate
Physicist says imaging techniques prove the president's bulge was not caused by wrinkled clothing.
By Kevin Berger Oct. 29, 2004
George W. Bush tried to laugh off the bulge. "I don't know what that is," he said on "Good Morning America" on Wednesday, referring to the infamous protrusion beneath his jacket during the presidential debates. "I'm embarrassed to say it's a poorly tailored shirt."
Dr. Robert M. Nelson, however, was not laughing. He knew the president was not telling the truth. And Nelson is neither conspiracy theorist nor midnight blogger. He's a senior research scientist for NASA and for Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and an international authority on image analysis. Currently he's engrossed in analyzing digital photos of Saturn's moon Titan, determining its shape, whether it contains craters or canyons.
For the past week, while at home, using his own computers, and off the clock at Caltech and NASA, Nelson has been analyzing images of the president's back during the debates. A professional physicist and photo analyst for more than 30 years, he speaks earnestly and thoughtfully about his subject. "I am willing to stake my scientific reputation to the statement that Bush was wearing something under his jacket during the debate," he says. "This is not about a bad suit. And there's no way the bulge can be described as a wrinkled shirt."
Nelson and a scientific colleague produced the photos from a videotape, recorded by the colleague, who has chosen to remain anonymous, of the first debate. The images provide the most vivid details yet of the bulge beneath the president's suit. Amateurs have certainly had their turn at examining the bulge, but no professional with a résumé as impressive as Nelson's has ventured into public with an informed opinion. In fact, no one to date has enhanced photos of Bush's jacket to this degree of precision, and revealed what appears to be some kind of mechanical device with a wire snaking up the president's shoulder toward his neck and down his back to his waist.
Nelson stresses that he's not certain what lies beneath the president's jacket. He offers, though, "that it could be some type of electronic device -- it's consistent with the appearance of an electronic device worn in that manner." The image of lines coursing up and down the president's back, Nelson adds, is "consistent with a wire or a tube."
Nelson used the computer software program Photoshop to enhance the texture in Bush's jacket. The process in no way alters the image but sharpens its edges and accents the creases and wrinkles. You've seen the process performed a hundred times on "CSI": pixelated images are magnified to reveal a clear definition of their shape.
Bruce Hapke, professor emeritus of planetary science in the department of geology and planetary science at the University of Pittsburgh, reviewed the Bush images employed by Nelson, whom he calls "a very highly respected scientist in his field." Hapke says Nelson's process of analyzing the images are the "exact same methods we use to analyze images taken by spacecraft of planetary surfaces. It does not introduce any artifacts into the picture in any way."
How can Nelson be certain there's some kind of mechanical device
beneath Bush's jacket? It's all about light and shadows, he says. The
angles at which the light in the studio hit Bush's jacket expose contours that fit no one's picture of human anatomy and wrinkled
shirts. And Nelson compared the images to anatomy texts. He also
experimented with wrinkling shirts in various configurations, wore them under his jacket under his bathroom light, and couldn't produce anything close to the Bush bulge.
In the enhanced photo of the first debate, Nelson says, look at the
horizontal white line in middle of the president's back. You'll see a shadow. "That's telling me there's definitely a bulge," he says. "In
fact, it's how we measure the depths of the craters on the moon or on Mars. We look at the angle of the light and the length of shadow they leave. In this case, that's clearly a crater that's under the
horizontal line -- it's clearly a rim of a bulge protruding upward, one
due to forces pushing it up from beneath."
Hapke, too, agrees that the bulge is neither anatomy nor a wrinkled
shirt. "I would think it's very hard to avoid the conclusion that there's something underneath his jacket," he says. "It wouldcertainly
be consistent with some kind of radio receiver and a wire."
Nelson admits that he's a Democrat and plans to vote for John Kerry.
But he takes umbrage at being accused of partisanship. "Everyone wants to think my colleague and I are just a bunch of dope-crazed ravaged Democrats who are looking to insult the president at the last minute," he says. "And that's not what this is about. This is scientific analysis. If the bulge were on Bill Clinton's back and he was lying about it, I'd have to say the same thing."
"Look, he says, "I'm putting myself at risk for exposing this. But this
is too important. It's not about my reputation. If they force me into
an early retirement, it'll be worth it if the public knows about this.
It's outrageous statements that I read that the president is wearing
nothing under there. There's clearly something there."
article [Salon]: thanks, joerg
2004 Scariest Halloween Costumes
For example: The Littlest Prisoner at Abu Ghraib
link thanks, joerg
October 30, 2004
Photo Unequal-Opportunity?
U.S. President George W. Bush walks into a curtained off area to meet with African American leaders before a rally in the Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan, October 27, 2004. @
~Is this curtain to stop photos of the President with African-American leaders from circulating among his racist supporters, or the leaders' constituents? Who has more to lose? Who has more to gain? More importantly, who asked for the curtain?
Look at how many people are stuffed inside. It must have been an unscheduled, spur of the moment meeting, (which is telling in itself)? I guess the Silverdome doesn't have conference rooms large enough (safe enough) to comfortably fit all those people?
Update: Maybe the curtained-area was all about security (which says something else again) and had nothing to do photo-unopportunities: here's the one photo Yahoo posted as of 12:00pm Friday of Bush with African-Americans from that rally in Pontiac. There were three photos of the curtained area. [ Yahoo link]
Heavenly Concurrence
In a composite photo comprised of 6 separate photos, five of the moon and one of the U.S. Capitol, the moon is seen transitioning L to R from full to a state of full lunar eclipse in the evening sky over Washington, October 27, 2004. The picture of the Capitol was taken with a 200mm lens looking east and the photos of the moon were taken with a 400mm lens also looking east as it passed over the U.S. Capitol moving from north to south. REUTERS/Gary Hershorn
~Isn't it obvious that heaven itself is in harmony with our Capitol?
I'm creeped out when politicians and celebrities publically praise their deities as the source of their good fortune (where's mine?) but I get a thrill when I find images of structures that attempt to make a cosmic connection. You'ld be surprised at the number of ornaments and art-work in otherwise innocuous public buildings that reflect the cosmos. If such a connection wasn't so unquestionably (unconsciously) accepted, the hubris might be touching. (Awww. The moon and stars revolve around your county's courthouse.)
October 29, 2004
Analysis Concludes at Least 100,000 Civilians Died in Iraq
One of the first attempts to independently estimate the loss of civilian life from the Iraqi war has concluded that at least 100,000 Iraqi civilians may have died because of the U.S. invasion.
The analysis, an extrapolation based on a relatively small number of actual documented deaths, indicated that many of the excess deaths have occurred due to aerial attacks by coalition forces, with women and children being frequent victims, wrote the international team of public health researchers who made the calculations.
Pentagon officials say they do not keep tallies of civilian casualties, and a spokesman said Thursday there is no way to validate estimates by others. The past 18 months of fighting in Iraq has been "prosecuted in the most precise fashion of any conflict in the history of modern warfare," the spokesman said, adding that "the loss of any innocent lives is a tragedy, something that Iraqi security forces and the multinational force painstakingly work to avoid."
Previous independent estimates of civilian deaths in Iraq have been far lower, never exceeding 16,000, and other experts immediately challenged the new estimate, saying the small number of actual documented deaths upon which it was based made the conclusions suspect.
item
CNNs version:
In a survey published on the Web site of the Lancet medical journal on Friday, experts from the United States and Iraq also said the risk of death for Iraqi civilians was 2.5 times greater after the invasion.
Two-thirds of violent deaths recorded in the study were reported in the Sunni triangle city of Falluja.
"Democratic imperialism has led to more deaths not fewer. This political and military failure continues to cause scores of casualties among non-combatants. It is a failure that deserves to be a serious subject for research."
story
~OK the researchers cooked the numbers hoping to get money for a bigger and better survey, that will coincidentally sound like good news in comparison? (Statistical extortion?) Proving conclusively only 60,000/50,000/40,000 Iraqi men, women and children died, that wouldn't have died, if we hadn't invaded? Hurray! USA! USA! USA!
No matter the number ultimately agreed upon by the news-pundits et.al. President Bush is the man responsible for sending between 16,000 and 100,000 souls to heaven or hell before their time.
Does that make Jesus happy or sad?
News junkies note: the above newspaper item can't bring itself to mention the Lancet or John Hopkins as the source for "the analysis". Amateur journalism or censorship?
The Lancet did this study. Imagine the American Medical Association printing something that might upset the politicians with the power to tax their investment portfolios?
EMS (Edition Message Samplers)
EMS is a mobile phone craft project created for the New Forms Festival 2004 by Kate Pemberton. Designs have been created that can be accessed using your mobile phone, and as patterns to cross stitch.
Free wallpapers / screen savers for your mobile phone
EMS messages can be recieved as image wallpapers for most mobile phones, there are 4 designs to collect...
Redeem the Vote
~Clean, sober, god-fearing people with a not so clean ('if you lie down with dogs...') fear-driven sobering message.
Their 'Partners' ...Any questions, dawg?
Does America really need people like this telling the rest of us what Jesus told them to do?
They can still scare the kids with 'sex is death'?
(Keep them crazy with nothing to do?
Their daddies and a few of their mommies must be laughing their asses off.)
Amazing what you have to believe nowdays to be part of the gang.
Eat/Death
Bruce Nauman 1972
neon, edition of 6
7 1/2 x 25 1/4 x 2 1/8 inches
19.1 x 64.1 x 5.4 cm
~While looking at the small pictures of art at this gallery I'm reminded that I've spent more time around particular trees, among various weeds and looking at birds then I have with museum quality objects of art. I've seen one Bruce Nauman exhibit, looked at the exhibit catalog, and read an interview and a magazine article or two. I've also thought about his work a few times over the years. All of this adding up to a "Bruce Nauman Experience" of about four hours.
I've spent more time thinking about and looking at the turkey vultures around the nuclear plant.
Would living with a Bruce Nauman sculpture be the same as seeing a turkey vulture floating on a thermal everytime I looked out the window? How about if I owned/had access to one Bruce Nauman sculpture for every turkey vulture I've ever seen?
Am I making too much of turkey vultures? Too little of Bruce Nauman?
In the world where people purchase (or are paid to report on, write about) Bruce Nauman's art there's no way to compare vultures and sculptures.
UK: Nobles and Admirals on War 'Suspect List'
A full list of suspected wartime traitors, including the Duke of Bedford, Sir Oswald Mosley and many other members of the British upper classes who would have been arrested in the event of a German invasion has been released for the first time at the National Archives.
The "Suspect List", which fills hundreds of pages of dog-eared papers kept in thick files, was one of the most closely guarded of wartime secrets and even now, 60 years to the day after it was formally closed, is still shrouded in mystery.
In the list of more than 400 people drawn up by MI5 and Special Branch, coal miners and hairdressers rub shoulders with dukes and retired admirals, while bank managers are collected together with doctors, dentists and ladies of leisure.
Britain in early 1941 was terrified by the prospect of invasion, and the Suspect List was drawn up so that people who had not already been interned as Nazi sympathisers could be seized to prevent them acting as spies or saboteurs for the Germans.
The country was divided into regions, with a commissioner appointed for each. The list for each region is included in the documents released except, inexplicably, London - which almost certainly contains the names of more Establishment figures.
The files show that the first task of the post-invasion regime was the seizure of people on the Suspect List, who would all be put into prison or internment camps without trial.
story
~One might wonder today if all countries maintain their own "Suspect Lists" in case of invasion or national emergencies.
Which celebrities and politicians are on ours? Who's the oldest member?... from before WII? Who might be the youngest?
Who's job to update; eliminating people who've died, adding names...and on who's recommendation? The FBI?
Is there a software program that takes all the guess-work out of listing potential enemies of the state, future Homeland detainees?
Are there many families on the list? Corporate boards? Clubs? Churches? Schools?
Wouldn't the American people like to know the criteria for a "Suspect List"? You'ld think by now an enterprising reporter would've earned a Pulitzer with its story.
Is it a crime to acknowledge that such a list exists?
There must be a American suspect list from WII and the Cold War, and updated since 9/11 for national emergencies and martial law?
Could it be the "No Fly List" supersized?
Could the various federal law enforcement agencies have their own secret lists? Could the 50 American states have lists too?
October 28, 2004
Photo-Caption Non Sequitur(s)
Baudelaire, writing of Edgar Allan Poe, remarks “Nature makes a point of bestowing a special vigor of temperament upon those of whom she expects great things, just as she gives a rugged vitality to those trees whose function it is to symbolize grief and mourning.”
~That we can see this special temperament bestowed on women, and not as something to be possessed by men and spent on children or home, is a new thing. Women still wear hats, scarves and painful shoes.
Table of Contents for: Writing With Images
by George L. Dillon
~From intro: Imagetext and Other Mixed Modes
"The emergence of digital text and image does transform many things, starting with the material work of fabricating texts and images, but these changes in material practice do not directly and immediately change signifying practices. It is this complicated picture of emerging practices, with main focus on the signifying ones, that this book sets out to trace...
From:
1.3 Appropriations
Figure 1.29
Victor Burgin, "Possession"
~This is a college textbook with many descriptions & illustrations. You will not be tested so skip what you don't like or can't understand. Well worth it's price...it's free.
US Gave Date of War to Britain in Advance
Court papers Reveal
Secret plans for the war in Iraq were passed to British Army chiefs by US defence planners five months before the invasion was launched, a court martial heard yesterday.
The revelation strengthened suspicions that Tony Blair gave his agreement to President George Bush to go to war while the diplomatic efforts to force Saddam Hussein to comply with UN resolutions were continuing.
story
~Bugger all.
One Finger Victory Salute
~Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!
Scientists Warn of 'Ethnic Weapons'
BIOLOGICAL weapons that target selected ethnic groups could become part of the terrorists' arsenal unless governments and scientists act now, the British Medical Association warns.
Such designer weapons would be based on the growing ability of scientists to unravel and compare human DNA.
n theory, experts could engineer organisms to attack genetic variations commonly found in, say, Chinese or German populations.
Genetically engineered anthrax, smallpox and polio viruses are also "approaching reality", the BMA claims in a new report, Biotechnology, Weapons and Humanity II.
press release
~There are many different ways we can be targeted.
To be modern is to be measured.
Candidate Supporters
Long distance supporters : Pakistani schoolchildren walk with a cut-out of US Democratic presidential candidate Senator John Kerry as part of a rally organized by the World Minorities Alliance NGO to show support for Kerry. (AFP/Jewel Samad) @
Cops Seize Aborted Fetus in Rape Case
Lt. Lisa Williams, spokeswoman for the (San Mateo County, CA)Sheriff's Office, said the search warrant may sound unusual, "but it does make sense."
Williams said she didn't know of any other cases where investigators had actually seized a fetus. But, she said it's not all that different from using a search warrant to get other samples used in DNA testing. A search warrant is common, for instance, if we're going to draw blood," she said.
story via: aberrant news
~There are many different ways we leave our 'mark' on the world. You can't spit without...
(When will autograph hounds begin collecting DNA samples of celebrities? There's no chance for forgeries, although male celebrities could easily flood the market with product and drive down prices.)
October 27, 2004
Visual Sensing Without Seeing
Mapping the Sixth Sense(?)
Most of us have felt it before -- that sinking feeling that something is about to happen, that something is not quite right. It’s the stuff of scary movies, X-Files episodes and psychic visits.
But according to a new study by Ron Rensink, an associate professor in both psychology and computer science at UBC, (University of British Columbia), the "sixth sense" is a distinct mode of visual perception and may be something all of us can learn to employ.
He calls it "mindsight" -- the phenomenon where people can sense a change but do not see it (i.e. have a visual experience of it) for several seconds.
"There is something there -- people do have access to this other subsystem," says Rensink..
"Vision is not just one ability, it’s not just one sense. There is vision for conscious perception -- this picture you have of what’s going on -- and there is also vision for action. It turns out these are two very different subsystems -- one of them is conscious, one of them is non-conscious...
press release/ archived
~Is this phenomenon similar to listening without hearing; eating without tasting; talking without communicating; living without thriving? To those people (you DON'T know who you are) 'without a clue'?
Psychological Anomalies Subject List
[excerpt]
Eidetic Imagery
Vivid Afterimages
Eidetic Imagery and Retardation
Eidetic Imagery and Hallucinations
Recovery of Eidetic Imagery through Hypnosis
Capacity of the Human Brain
Emotional Enhancement of Memory
Learning and Memory under Anesthesia
Hypnosis and Memory
Pseudomemory
Hypnotic Misrecall
Mnemonics
Photographic Memory
Prenatal Mental Life
Inherited Memories
False-Memory Syndrome
Memory-Processing Bottlenecks
Memory Regression
Cryptonesia
Synesthesia
Optical Illusions
Near-Death Experiences
NDEs in Non-Threatening Situations
Involuntary Memories during Illness and Injury
Hypnagogic Illusions
Hypnopompic Illusions
Migraine Hallucinations
Epileptic Hallucinations
Drug-Induced Hallucinations
Hallucinations during Sensory Deprivation
Conjurable and Manipulatible Hallucinations
Spontaneous Hallucinations
Fairies, Elementals, etc.
Religious Hallucinations (Angels)
Psychic Lights (Welsh Revival)
UFOs and Their Occupants
Visions of Monsters
Illusions of Desired Physical Phenomena (N-Rays)
Psychic Doubles or Autoscopic Illusions
Negative Hallucinations
Collective Hallucinations
Auditory Hallucinations
Imaginary Companions ("Philip" Phenomenon)
Nightmares
Auras
Hostage Hallucinations
Geomagnetism and Hallucinations
Hallucinations in Life-Threatening Situations
Lilliputian Hallucinations
Hypnotism and Color Blindness
Illusions of Levitation
Seance Illusions
Indian Rope Trick and Related Magic Tricks
Sex-Change Hallucination
Ghosts
Alien Abductions
Psychic Surgery
Missing Time
Hallucination Duplication in Time
Men-in-Black
Black helicopters
Pyramid Power
Out-of-the-Body Experiences (OBEs)
OBEs under Morbid Conditions
Visual Hallucinations Stimulated by Crystal Balls and Similar Devices
Auditory Hallucinations Stimulated by Tape Recorders and Similar Devices
Odd Perceptions
Optical Illusions
complete list/more lists; no outside links
try typing subjects in the Science Frontiers search window here for more information
~With so many different varieties of psychological states, perceptual phenomena, is it any wonder we're 'haunted'.
(No wonder there are angry ghosts, ghosts get blamed for everything.)
Candidate Bush
U.S. President George W. Bush waves as he descends the steps of Air Force One at Quad City International Airport in Moline, Illinois, enroute to his next campaign event in nearby Davenport, Iowa, October 25, 2004. @
~Going down? Circle Eight?
A Candidate Supporter
A supporter listens intently to...Kerry or Bush?
View image @
It's a good thing that generally we can't tell by looking who supports which candidate?
Candidate Kerry
Democratic Presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry ( D-Mass)., throws a football on the tarmac before departing the Austin Straubel International Airport in Green Bay, Wisc. Tuesday, Oct. 26, 2004 @
~And to think if he's elected, or if he's not, Kerry may never be photographed doing activities like this again. By November 3 he'll be a very different subject for photographers. No more games on airport tarmac?
Policing the Airwaves: Intrusion Detection Systems (IDSs)
...a wireless IDS sensor shows all active APs (wireless access points)and client stations that broadcast signals within its range regardless of whether those devices are part of your network. A sensor can determine whether APs and client stations are using encryption and if so, what kind, and it can determine what type of wireless frequencies and channels are in use. A sensor can also detect rogue devices, intrusion attempts, network probing, wireless attacks, and more.
You can use the central management console of some wireless IDS systems to instruct sensors to initiate countermeasures that will prevent APs from functioning or will prevent specific client stations from connecting to your wireless APs. To block client stations and rogue APs, a wireless IDS broadcasts data so as to initiate a Denial of Service (DoS) attack against the devices. But you should use such blocking with extreme caution because intentionally inflicting a DoS might cause someone, such as an innocent neighboring business or one of your company's own employees visiting from another office, undue harm.
-detailed press release on 3 IDSs with prices
~APs can also be cell phones, automatic automobile locks, GPSs, garage-door openers, ATMs, gas pumps, walkie-talkies, etc., as well as sensors? Forget about planting tracking devices (which have there own electronic 'signature') with IDSs you can track people and vehicles within range based on the frequency and channels of the wireless devices they'ld ordinarily use?
October 26, 2004
Quotation: Derrida
"But psychoanalysis has taught that the dead—a dead parent, for example—can be more alive for us, more powerful, more scary, than the living. It is the question of ghosts." @
~Psychoanalysis is what rich people did before the interstate highway system proliferated street drugs. The dullest of people often achieved the most profound insights, which we all can share.
Grotowski: Directory of Source Material
"Towards a Poor Theater"
~When I was young and very foolish I took to heart: "all the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players..." @
A few of my baby ghosts can be found here.
Word Derivation: To Stand
'There is a set of words comprising what we might call the Stance family, for they all derive from a concept of place, or placement. In the Indo-Germanic languages the root for this family is sta, to stand (Sanscrit, stha ). And out of it there has developed this essential family, comprising such members as: consist, constancy, constitution, contrast. destiny, ecstasy, existence, hypostasize, obstacle, stage, state, status, statute, stead, subsist, and system. In German, an important member of the Stance family is stellen , to place, a root that figures in Vorstellung, a philosopher's and psychologist's word for representation, conception, idea, image'
@ via: A Glossary of the Humanities
100 Facts and 2 Opinions
The Non-Arguable Case Against the Bush Administration
article by Judd Legum
~"This election is a referendum on public education.
We're about to find out whether the American public has accumulated enough smarts to vote out the tyrants."--Helen & Harry Highwater @ unknown news
The President Who Cried "Wolf!"
"Unintentionally revealing Bush ad hypes non-existent danger
...we don't need the Bush administration to "protect" us from wolves, any more than Americans needed to be "protected" from Iraqis."
Poem
[excerpt]
What have I lost? At night my hooting tongue,
Naked of feathers and of softening years,
Sings through the mirror at me like a whippoorwill
And then I cannot sleep.
"I was a singer once," it sings.
"I sing the song that every captured tongue
Sang once when free and wants again to sing.
But I can sing no song I have not sung."
What have I lost? Spook singer, hold your tongue.
I sing a newer song no ghost-bird sings.
Read "A Postcript to the Berkeley Renaissance" by Jack Spicer
Book Review: Mutants
What makes a monster? Is it a thing with a hairy face, extra eyes or missing limbs? Or is it simply anything that we don't understand?
From two-headed infants and conjoined twins to supernumerary breasts and fragile bones, human mutants have a long history. In tracing ideas about the "form, nature and varieties of the human body", the biologist Armand Marie Leroi reveals the age-old conflict between the views of deformity as divine design and deformity as accident.
...it turns out that on average each of us contains 300 potentially harmful mutations - and one inn 10 of us has an extra rib.
"Who are the mutants? We are all mutants."
Sunday Times' review/ more reviews
Ghost
via: Alex van Zeggeren's Photo Gallery /
also: Crumbcake in Wonderland
The Spector of Terrorism*
[*An observation made on NPR's Odyssey: The Ghost in American Culture (Oct 25, '04)]
~Why 'spector of terrorism'? The hidden hand of terrorism is a more fitting description but not on google. The infection of terrorism, today (Oct. 25.'04) has as many hits as 'spector of terrorism' but infections and disease aren't nearly as evocative as ghosts and hauntings.
Why Does Napoleon Have His Hand in His Open Vest?
James notes:
i've been looking at a lot of civil war photographs today. and
sometimes the generals have their hands in their jackets like
napoleon.
http://www.civilwarphotos.net/files/images/285.jpg
http://www.civilwarphotos.net/files/images/284.jpg
what is up with that?
why did napolean do it, and why did other guys do that?
~The hidden hand!
Japanese Researchers Develop Live Video for Ambulances
A public research institute has developed a system that can send high-definition video of a patient from an ambulance to a hospital via cell phone.
The system was developed through a collaborative project in Ibaraki Prefecture by the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), the Tsukuba Medical Center Hospital, and the Tsukuba Fire Headquarters.
The AIST said the system would be tested in the city by year end and would go on sale nationwide in April.
To accommodate the system, ambulances will be modified to carry a video camera, laptop computer and special antenna.
At the flick of a switch, paramedics will activate the system, enabling a hospital doctor to examine a patient via remote control video camera.
New technology has made it possible to compress high-definition image data enough to allow its transmission by cell phone.
The images will make it possible for doctors to dispense appropriate advice to paramedics.
According to national statistics, it takes an average of 21 minutes to transport an emergency patient to hospital.
Yomiuri Shimbun
~This is a no-brainer. Is this one of those infrastructure improvements America has to do without because of its war on terrorism?
October 25, 2004
Bush as a Mediatric Icon
Doing a search in any search engine for the words 'against Bush' give out more than half a million results, which are, in most cases groups of people that have joined to express their disagreement against the current US president and ask voters not to reelect him.
It's curious that a similar search for 'against kerry' only gives out a hundred thousand results that are reduced to catholics and veterans asociations against Kerry.
complete blog entry w/ links
The Work of Images in Wartime
"On the last day of the 3rd European Social Forum, held in London from October 15 to 17, 2004, there was an anti-war demonstration, in which 20-25,000 people marched from Russell Square to Trafalgar Square protesting the American occupation of Iraq and Britain's support to the US.
At the concluding Trafalgar Square meeting / concert, there was a large screen set up beside the stage, constantly showing images to go along with the music. All these images were carefully selected to get their message across without any cognitive delay. There were pictures of political leaders, pretzels, Ronald Mc Donald, hamburgers, bombs dropping out of fighter planes, caricatures of Bush and Blair, guns, tanks, Disney-Paris, American troops in the Middle East, Arundhati Roy in the Narmada Valley, anti-WTO protesters in Seattle, South American farmers, Guantanamo Bay, Donald Rumsfeld, riot police, etc. etc., i.e., contemporary images, taken from war, dissent movements, world politics and American pop culture in general, especially aspects of it that Europeans tend to dislike.
So far, so good.
What I found appalling and abhorrent was that the Abu Ghraib pictures were also up there.
It is not clear to me why it's alright to put photographs of torture in loops and play them like music videos at a concert in the open air with thousands of viewers, even if it is a gathering of protest. It's not like anyone had a choice -- you couldn't turn the images off, because it wasn't your private television you were watching. You were forced to behold these atrocious sights, huge, lit up, unfolding in the historic heart of London. There were children in the crowd, as many people had brought their kids along, the demonstration being held on a Sunday afternoon.
Displaying the human rights violations and crimes against humanity of Abu Ghraib in a public setting without giving viewers a discretionary option -- to me this seems like a gross misuse of the media. It is an assault on the viewer and also disrespectful to the victims whose misery is turned into a global spectacle. War crimes must have witnesses for there to be justice, but an anti-war demonstration is not a space for acts of witnessing that have any standing or use in a court of law. As participants in the demonstration, we were all forcibly turned into spectators equally of the cruelty of the perpetrators and the suffering of their victims, the debasement of the American soldiers at Abu Ghraib and the humiliation of the Iraqi prisoners. If my act of witnessing cannot serve a legal purpose or a political purpose or even a moral purpose, I do not want to be arm twisted into this kind of spectatorship. Images of torture are not entertaining, not instructive, not informative, and not valid instruments of propaganda that purports to be non-violent in its methods, its medium and its message.
Perhaps resorting to such explicit images of violence is an index of the frustration, even impotence, that many in dissenting sections of European society feel when confronted with the power of the current American administration and its allies. By descending to the level of splicing in Abu Ghraib footage, those protesting American -- and in this case British and Israeli -- occupation and domination in Iraq and Palestine appear to be no less desperate than the terrorists who make videos as they behead their hostages and then want these to be aired on television channels across the world. But even if it is the case that all players have been pushed to the wall by an intransigent world power like the United States, such extreme tactics have to be condemned, no matter which side employs them and which side we would like to support in these terrible conflicts.
Some years ago in India, I came to know and like Daniel and Mariane Pearl. Danny's horrendous execution at the hands of kidnappers and its recording on film were not just traumatic and tragic events for his family, friends and colleagues: the whole civilized world was in shock. Today decapitation videos are par for the course.
What is more egregious -- that innocents are butchered at all? That their murder is filmed? That such films are broadcast? That such broadcasts become routine and lose any meaning whatsoever?
This perversion of the media in the very last hours of the European Social Forum left a bitter taste in my mouth. No one can deny that the world is radically mediatized. Media will service any ideology without much discernment. But there must be limits and rules to the mediatization of war. Recall Guy Debord: "[Life in the era of spectacular technology] no longer projects into the sky but shelters within itself its absolute denial, its fallacious paradise. (...). The spectacle is the nightmare of imprisoned modern society which ultimately expresses nothing more than its desire to sleep. The spectacle is the guardian of sleep." (The Society of the Spectacle, 1:20-21). Making a spectacle out of the monstrous acts in Abu Ghraib is an entailment of political slumber that also perpetuates that slumber..."
Ananya Vajpeyi: list post @ underfire
~I don't get a sense of the size of the images being projected or how easy it might've been to move through the crowd to avoid looking at them. However I'm certain not all public gatherings 'go-better' with images.
There are marketing companies using text screens for advertising messages at gas pumps, atm machines and public restrooms and there may be a time when flat screens will be cheap and flexible enough to wear as clothing and people will walk around like video sandwich boards projecting images as commercial or fashion statements, but even those examples are different than a wall sized video projection of images displayed to a captive audience.
Maybe visual pollution, visual noise should be redefined? Start with the Fortune 500's presence in your town and the various governments and utilities infrastructure and zoning variances. Expect than demand aesthetically designed commericial and public spaces? Maybe then rally organizers wouldn't presume to subject their invited guests to home movies no matter what their content.
Diefenbunker Haunted Halloween
Visit one of the most unique tourist attractions in Canada. A huge four -story bunker, buried deep under a hillside and meant to house crucial elements of Canadian government in a nuclear war, is now open to you. Exhibits and recreated areas provide a startling glimpse into Cold War history...
~One could metaphorical claim that the infrastructure that built these crucial fortifications against nuclear war continues to haunt each & everyone of us in Norte America. That the places themselves might now be haunted is poetic justice, but not nearly pay-back.
Leonardo Reviews
Leonardo Reviews is the work of an international panel of scholars and professionals invited from a wide range of disciplines to review books, exhibitions, CD-ROMs, Web sites, and conferences....
[Leonardo Reviews is a scholarly review service published by MIT Press and the International Society for Arts, Sciences, and Technology.]
This website is the place where these reviews are received and posted as they arrive. Subject to the editorial processes, many are also printed in Leonardo to reach a different constituency and form part of the Leonardo archive.
home page
October 24, 2004
The Killer Elite
The true story of bullets, bombs and a Marine platoon at war in Iraq
"Get some! is the unofficial Marine Corps cheer. It's shouted when a brother Marine is struggling to beat his personal best in a fitness run. It punctuates stories told at night about getting laid in whorehouses in Thailand and Australia. It's the cry of exhilaration after firing a burst from a .50-caliber machine gun. Get some! expresses in two simple words the excitement, fear, feelings of power and the erotic-tinged thrill that come from confronting the extreme physical and emotional challenges posed by death, which is, of course, what war is all about. Nearly every Marine I've met is hoping this war with Iraq will be his chance to get some."
[In March 2003, reporter Evan Wright was in central Iraq with a Marine special forces unit that was leading the charge toward Baghdad. The Marine First Reconnaissance Battalion's task was to go in "ahead of the main Marine invasion force, and... seek out enemy ambushes by driving into them."]
article
~This story made me wonder what these soldiers would've been doing if America hadn't invaded Iraq. Whatever...it would never have been as intense. Their lives would've been diminished? They wouldn't be history. They'ld still be no one from no place doing nothing spectacular. Nothing like this. Nothing like war.
Reality Mining:
Browsing Reality with Sensor Networks
Sensors streaming their data online are turning the Internet into a global sensor network. Software platforms that integrate and mine these data streams may create a world in which sensors become pixels and we browse reality as easily as we browse Web pages today.
Our (Gary Boone, Accenture Technology Labs) prototype of a Sensor Information System combines commercial off-the-shelf software with real-time sensors, custom web crawling agents, and data modeling. It combines geographic information systems (GIS) software, mission planning/terrain visualization systems, and sensor networks. Its data sources include live sensor data, publicly available Web information, and commercial financial data within a photo-realistic, 3D visualization of our office building and environs. The visualization environment (TerraExplorer Pro by Skyline Software Systems) seamlessly knits together satellite and aerial photography, digital elevation maps, 3D models, and data overlays. We'll discuss three of our demonstrations in detail to give you an idea of how this works
press release
Art2B: Model Index
For example:
Alisha [caution nudity]
~glamour: A) noun: alluring beauty or charm (often with sex-appeal) B) verb: cast a spell over someone or something; put a hex on someone or something
view more models
["Linger over the image with your cursor and info will show as to where (in the UK) the model is based."]
See also: What is glamour?/ Definition of Glamour Photography
October 23, 2004
Fighting Terror in Ohio
Associated Press's Katherine Pleger Shrader parsed Homeland Security's travel records and discovered that nearly 60 percent of their travel in the past seven months has been to the 17 most hotly contested states in the presidential race.
blog entry w/links via: unknown news
Jon Stewart's Book Banned at Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart canceled its order for America: The Book after learning there were naked Supreme Court judges lurking inside.
The photos are obviously doctored. The heads belong to the seven men and two women on the court, but the bodies are from ClothesFree.com, a nudist Web site.
Wal-Mart can account for as much as 20% of sales of popular books. But (Warner Books publisher Jamie) Raab says that's truer for commercial fiction by well-known novelists such as Nicholas Sparks than for political titles.
story via: unknown news
~ I wonder about WalMart's book list. Does WalMart sell books Amazon can't give away? A best selling book is a best seller everywhere? Like a popular movie?
Overheard at Starbucks
"All over the country police departments are outsourcing their red squads. .... Homeland Security grants. ...new security consulting firms...ex-cops, first-responders, moon-lighting cops and relatives."
"It'll be harder to fight city-hall."
State of the Birds
How are our nation's birds really faring? Audubon's science team has pooled the best data available since Silent Spring to report on their overall health. Depending on the habitat in which they live, they could be flying high or sinking fast. This report sums up the status of 654 bird species native to the continental United States...
link to bird report/ bird images for media
[transbody]
Paola Gaetano Adi has begun to conduct experiments in bodily fusion at a distance. Her collaborative 'transBody' project invites artists and amateurs everywhere to donate sets of virtual limbs. By attaching video cameras to their waists, pointed upward or downward, and filming their bodies in motion, viewers can help to articulate Gaetano Adi's 'hybrid bodies'. Such are achieved by randomly projecting odd couples (each appropriately comprising a 'top' and a 'bottom') in quick succession.
link via: net art news
October 22, 2004
Candidate Bush
"I think that Bush has captured the kind of energy Hitler did which enabled Hitler to get the working poor to become the shock troops for their own destruction.
Bush takes away the safety net that the neocons have resented since FDR helped put the safety net in place. How can Bush manage that? The method seems to be to: create huge discrepancies between the rich and the poor, wipe out the middle class and then offer them 2 direct and two indirect areas in which to be special and wield power without assets.
The large ones are the military and fundamentalist religion.
In the military you can be poor, equipped with only a GED, and yet have the power to torture others and if you are a sergeant torture and abuse the enlisted men and women. You can kill and eventually command and feel mighty.
In religion, you can be the chosen of God and feel the power that you are chosen while all the unsaved will die painfully. You have the power to judge and condemn and hate.
Here Bush, a billionaire, manages to mobilize the resentment of the poor against the elite, educated, well spoken Kerry.
The indirect ways are doing or watching sports and entertainment. The circuses for Americans whose lives are being destroyed."
(photo via yahoo/ text a list post by Fraad)
Deadbeat Dad Contest Bad for Kids
In conjunction with the website PayKids, a site (Michigan's Attorney General Mike) Cox established to track down deadbeats, Cox announced a contest in which children are to draw pictures "that clearly convey the message of encouraging the payment of child support."
The contest's prize: "The first 250 submissions will receive a $10 gift certificate to Domino's Pizza....And, the winner, will have their rendering reproduced into a billboard in a prominent location..."
The contest encourages custodial parents – who, it should be noted, are overwhelmingly mothers – to discuss the issue with children and assist "in crafting the message and visual representation."
article by Wendy McElroy
Update: Billboard contest cancelled.
~This was a great idea but it didn't go far enough. Why doesn't the State of Michigan sponsor kid-art contests on a variety of parental models besides Deadbeat Dad? How about Workaholic Dad? Shouting Dad? Promising Dad? Always Worried Dad? Always Sleeping/Stoned/Drunk Dad? Invalid Dad? etc. Michigan's a big state with excellent highways, lots of trees, and laws that favor billboard advertising. How about bill-boards everywhere with kid-art interpretations of Mom? Workaholic Mom? Screaming Mom? Fatiqued Mom? Two Moms? Moms Boyfriends? etc. (Teacher? Policeman? Reverend? Doctor? Nurse? Coach? Terrorist? President? etc, etc.)...like the WPA, but for kids.
I think a program like this would do wonders for all the arts in Michigan, be good for tourism, and might catch on elsewhere.
Candidate Kerry
Democratic Presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, second from left, waves as he returns from a goose hunting trip with Rep. Ted Strickland ( D-Ohio) left, Bob Bellino, a board member for the local Ducks Unlimited, second right, and Neal Brady, assistant park manager of Indian Lake State Park in western Ohio, right, in Poland, Ohio,With them is a yellow Labrador named Woody.
~Note: no one in this photo is carrying any bloody, buck-shot-ripped, dog-slobbered, goose carcasses.
Update:
"Earlier this week a buddy showed me a Bush ad in the Progressive Farmer Magazine. The ad denounced Kerry as a bogus hunter and supporter of gun control. I think that the ad carried the same photo that you posted. Unfortunately, the Progressive Farmer website does not include the ads from their print magazine, but you would probably appreciate the ad, if only for its deception."--Keith via e-mail.
~I went back to Yahoo Newsphotos and found a few photos of the above event with dead geese. I didn't think Kerry was a hunter and unconsciously chose a photo illustrating that prejudice? It would be good to know the last time Kerry went hunting.
There's one photo captioned: Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry indicates he shot one goose after a hunting outing in Springfield Township, Ohio October 21, 2004. REUTERS/Brian Snyder ...but there are no photos of Kerry carrying said dead goose. Could Kerry's prize be in the hands of the secret service agent? How very British, eh wot?
Where I come from, you carry if only to show off (and you clean), what you killed or caught.
Update: "Senator John Kerry killed some geese in Ohio and showed reporters his bloody hand to prove it." [New York Times] -Harpers Weekly Review October 26, 2004 By Roger D. Hodge.
What sorts of activities should Presidential candidates be photographed doing? (Democrats must show they enjoy hunting?) What activities are not news-worthy or avoided altogether? (The opera?) What kinds of clothing, or uniforms are they forbidden to wear? (Halloween costumes?)
Will product placement ever find its way into campaign photos?
(A bottle of Wild Turkey, a pack of White Owl Cigars would naturally fit in any of the above photos.)
Who Served in the Military?
Democrat/Republican (Chickenhawk) Politiicans
"I Was Just a Nobody"
Guantanamo, the world's most controversial prison camp and, for many, the epitome of American capriciousness, is about to change. By holding hearings of terror suspects and implementing modernization programs, Washington is trying to at least preserve the appearance of due process.
Soldiers of the notorious Afghan warlord Abdul Rashid Dostam arrested the man and then turned him over to the Americans. At the time, the United States was paying a lot of money for Taliban fighters and terrorists, and word of the bounties spread quickly in Afghanistan. "You will discover that people were simply sold; it was all about money," the alleged intelligence chief says to the colonel. "I was just a nobody. Ask my neighbor."
...the tribunals are moving forward, unaffected by the presidential campaign in the United States. How they reach their decisions is a secret. So far there is only one meager statistic. By last Thursday (Oct. 7, '04) 123 prisoners had been heard, and a decision had been reached in 69 cases. 68 are now officially classified as enemy combatants.
story
~God bless America. God bless its war on terrorism.
October 21, 2004
Workshop Examines Whether Voluntary Actions or Mandatory Regulations are Best for Clean Environment
Deanna H. Matthews, a researcher associate in civil and environmental engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, has studied environmental management systems in depth. She told the workshop that these systems are typically focused on ensuring that a company adheres to environmental regulatory requirements.
But her research has found that businesses with environmental management systems have compliance records that are nearly the same as companies without these systems. Companies with environmental management systems, for instance, do not differ significantly from firms without them in toxic releases, major air pollutants, or generation of hazardous waste...
press release / Institute of Medicine
~There are a number of environmental topics summarized here.
One recommends that nano-material manufacturers create a "road map of trust" in the handling, testing and disposal of toxic materials. (Which is ironic if not foolhardly given Ms. Matthews findings above.)
If the nano-industry has only starting talking about roadmaps and trust instead of rules and laws doesn't that mean there are no government regulations or industry-wide oversight of the tons of nano-materials now being produced? Scary. (They'll need to see dead bodies and armies of lawyers at their gates before rules and regulations are formulated?)
Glad to be Asexual
In a world where lust can be bought in a pill and skin is the marketing tool du jour, being David Jay cannot be easy. At the age of 22 he has never had sex. He has never experienced sexual attraction towards another person and does not believe it will ever happen.
There are many others who have similar stories to tell. They talk about growing up not being able to understand why everyone else seemed so interested in dating, kissing and touching; in experiencing the ritual of mating.
Until recently these people felt isolated, never suspecting others felt the same. But now, thanks in great part to an online forum founded by Jay, they are finding each other and identifying themselves with a common label. They call themselves asexual, and are coming out to parents and loved ones, declaring their asexuality to be as valid an orientation as being straight or gay
There are asexuals, for example, who have never felt the need to get close to other people, not even in a non-sexual way, and describe themselves as loners. But others, like Jay, want to connect with males or females - some people would define it as an orientation - only it seems to be purely emotional.
Their desire is to find a “mate” with whom they can share interests and spend time with but not have any form of sexual relationship with. (Jay once worried he could never feel love, but now knows he can. Indeed, unencumbered by sexual feelings, he believes his is a more powerful, unconditional form of love.) In addition, some asexuals are capable of experiencing bodily arousal. They get erections and some masturbate, although even while experiencing the physical cues of arousal there never is an impulse to do anything sexual with another person. A number of asexuals told me that watching porn or looking at erotic pictures were awkward experiences that they couldn’t relate to.
article/ Link to AVEN
[Asexual Visibility and Education Network]
~I was initially bothered by David being from America's Bible-belt, but this line: "(t)he amazing degree of variation in the experiences of asexual people suggests that the underlying causes of their lack of sexual attraction are very different"... made me a believer. As long as there's straight and gay asexuals so the rest of us 'sexuals' can know who to hang-out with.
I feel sexier already. I might not be getting any, but at least I know what I'm missing. Not like these losers.
Think of the sex jokes that'll be written.
Who Counts the Votes
It can be shockingly easy to tamper with vote counts on new machines. Software can be altered, subroutines slipped in by dishonest technicians to manipulate the vote in any way desired. Such fraud would be nearly impossible to detect, in large part because the companies that make the machines consider the code to be proprietary, and state and county officials are prohibited from examining it. Just as troubling, says voting technology expert Rebecca Mercuri, computer-administered elections can be much harder—even impossible—to check, audit, and recount, because systems increasingly record votes only electronically, eliminating paper trails. Without physical ballots to check, voters have no way of knowing whether machines are accurately casting their votes.
And the small number of companies dominating the field of computer-run elections are overwhelmingly connected to one party. As famed Texas journalist Ronnie Dugger, who wrote a path breaking investigation of electronic voting in The New Yorker in 1988, told Vankin, “The whole damn thing is mind-boggling. They could steal the presidency.”
Here are short profiles of the three most important voting-systems companies in the United States...
article
~During the few seconds of certainty I'm able to achieve weekly, I'm convinced the Republican Party has already stolen the Presidentcy. It's a done deal. I just can't see the American voters willingly support four more years of Bushite chaos. If Bush wins, it has to be by theft. The necessary machines are already fixed; a good number of registrations at crucial polling places in battleground states will remain lost; the necessary people will be in place; the courts have done this before.
Hidden Casualties
An Epidemic of Domestic Violence When Troops Return from War (Or When Deployed for War)
One novel way news reporters have tried to pinpoint the start of major U.S. military engagements is to monitor pizza deliveries at the Pentagon. It’s been called the “Domino’s theory”: When the generals and their staffs go into imminent-war mode, they stay at their posts late into the night, and the pizza orders shoot up.
There are more grim indicators that a military operation is nigh. As the war in Afghanistan began in October 2001, for example, “We could literally tell what units were being deployed from where, based on the volume of calls we received from given bases,” says Christine Hansen, executive director of the Connecticut-based Miles Foundation,which has assisted more than 10,000 victims of military-related domestic violence since 1997. The calls were from women who were facing threats and physical abuse from their partners—the same men who were supposedly being deployed on a mission to make America safer. “Then the same thing happened on the other end, when they came back,” Hansen adds.
article
By Jon Elliston and Catherine Lutz Southern Exposure 31.1 (Spring 2003)
Witch Hunt Threatened
Ugandan weekly publication The Xtreme has this week revealed the names of people who they claim are homosexuals and has threatened to reveal more names, claiming that their list includes high profile business men and religious leaders.
blog entry thanks, diederick
~The political/economic uses of an outgroup; compare and contrast with American politicians use of similar groups.
For example:
"Keyes says incest awaits kids of gays"
U.S. Senate candidate Alan Keyes told a rally (Oct.17, 2004) that incest was "inevitable" for children raised by gay couples because the children might not know both biological parents.
"If we do not know who the mother is, who the father is, without knowing all the brothers and sisters, incest becomes inevitable," Keyes told the Marquette Park rally held to oppose same-sex marriages.
"Whether they mean it or not, that is what will happen. If you are masked from your knowing your biological parents, you are in danger of encountering brothers and sisters you have no knowledge of."
The "United We Stand -- Defending Marriage" rally, staged by the groups Illinois Family Institute and Concerned Women for America, featured a procession of speakers, including religious leaders from various cultures. Among the approximately 150 people present were families huddling to keep warm. The event is part of a 14-city Illinois tour to push for a state constitutional amendment denying recognition and benefits to gay civil unions, moves other states have made or are considering.
story
~Because denying people equal protection of the law is a good thing for children, familes and society?
October 20, 2004
John Hinckley's Letter to Jodie Foster Written Immediately Before Assassination
~Awww, young love.
(Are there any human feelings that haven't been perverted?)
The CIAs Report on 9/11 Suppressed Until After the Election
The 9/11 Secret in the CIA's Back Pocket By Robert Scheer
In September, the New York Times reported that several family members met with (Porter J.) Goss [the former Republican House member (and chairman of the Intelligence Committee) who recently was appointed CIA chief by President Bush] privately to demand the release of the CIA inspector general's report. "Three thousand people were killed on 9/11, and no one has been held accountable," 9/11 widow Kristen Breitweiser told the paper.
The failure to furnish the report to Congress, said [Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice), ranking Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee], "fuels the perception that no one is being held accountable. It is unacceptable that we don't have [the report]; it not only disrespects Congress but it disrespects the American people."
story
~This report names names. It'll be useful to President Kerry. It'll be interesting to see if Congress will require any of these people to publically explain their actions.
Terrorbusters Inc.
Corporate America is spending heavily for protection. Private-sector outlays for antiterrorism measures and to guard against other forms of violence may now be as much as $40 billion to $50 billion a year, or two or three times higher than the annual rate before 9/11, according to estimates compiled by CQ Homeland Security, a daily Internet newsletter published by Congressional Quarterly. The federal government's contribution has also passed the $40 billion mark, double what it was before 9/11. As the spending soars, domestic security seems poised to become a significant factor in the overall economy, much the way military spending was during the cold war.
MARK ZANDI, chief economist at Economy.com, has developed a computer model of what would happen to the economy if spending on domestic security suddenly and miraculously went to zero next year. The initial impact would be negative. Removing the stimulus of the roughly $50 billion in government spending would shave a third of a percentage point off the annual growth rate of the economy, and the work force would be smaller by 140,000 jobs. But by 2006 or 2007, the economy would be better off, the model indicates.
article By LOUIS UCHITELLE and JOHN MARKOFF (NYTimes)
A Jacket Made from 'Tickle Me Elmo' Pelts
by Kelly Heaton via: ibid
~This fashion stuff confuses me, but I've fixated on this photo so its cool? cutting-edge ironic? sweat-shop sarcastic? a PETA parody?
A Brief Introduction to GPS Photo Linking
article via: del.icio.us/joshua
Nasikabatrachidae
~Once in awhile I get all googly about a living creature. It doesn't happen often...enough. Nasikabatrachidae (literally, 'nose-frog') from India is this seasons pin-up.
(Who needs aliens from outer space!)
Black Cat Riders
by Andrew Blandou
as seen in Monsters A Go Go "A Group Spook Show Spectacular!"
via: Dr. Menlo
More small pictures of Andrew Blandou's work here at Howdypardner.
October 19, 2004
Swedish Study Raises Concerns About Cell Phones
The three-year study included 750 participants, 150 of whom suffered from acoustic neuroma, a normally benign tumor that affects the auditory nerve. It found the tumor risk nearly doubled for those who had used mobile phones for at least ten years.
story
Churches Installing Cell-Phone Jammers
Also in schools, hotels, entertainment venues, government offices
story
The Ruins in Your Midst
you think you are asking an innocent question but you are not.
you think you are innocent but you are not.
you didn¹t think you were targeted but you are.
you thought there was a small thing you didn¹t understand
but you don¹t understand much of what is going on at all.
you ask for an understanding
but discover that you didn¹t even understand your own question.
you ask to understand
and discover that you are part of the problem.
you didn¹t particularly ask to be understood but you are,
better than you understood yourself.
you cannot stay on the sideline
even if you don¹t participate in the discussion any more.
you are grateful.
you are sad.
you glance at ruins in your midst.
(text via: underfire forum)
(image via google)
Another Steve Johnson "Content Over Style" Heritage Web Page
a sailor and his girlfriend walk through the ruins of bombed Plymouth
The Blitz Photos of Lady Nancy Astor
"These photos were found in a battered album that a friend of mine had bought at ..yes..you guessed...a car boot sale...where would we - the history seekers be without them!?"
Satanic Violence Puts Black Cat Adoption on Hold
It seems the SPCA in Pennsylvania has opted to take steps against the prevention of animal cruelty this Halloween by suspending certain animal adoptions until after the holiday..
blog entry w/link to source
~This is more about this particular SPCA's perception of Satanism and free creepy publicity than animal sacrifice; I hope.
I'm pretty sure in America there's a large group of white middle-class church-goers who's belief in the cruelties and power of invisible neighborhood satanists is an important part of their days and nights. And encouraging such beliefs is welcomed because 'it explains so much'.
However if the SPCA annually notices an increase in the adoption of black furry things, it's the popularity of Halloween theme parties and people decking out their homes as 'haunted houses' to blame, not Satan's minions gathering offerings to please their dark lord. (No difference you say?) Black cats/animals are to Halloween what baby chicks and bunny rabbits are to Easter. The SPCA should know that, don't you think?
Animal cruelty of the kind suggested in this news story is on the decline. Doctors, teachers, police and social workers have been informed of its association with early childhood abuse and developmental learning disorders. Jerking the public's chain with Satan is cruel and should be contested. That a tv news station would run such a story is appalling.
Then again Pennsylvania is the most gothic of states: generations of Appalachian-style in-breeding, miles upon miles of industry-created dead-zones and coal-mining waste lands, a huge Roman Catholic population and the voodoo of big cities.
The Game of the Name
"...Baaaagdaaad, for example, is nothing like how an Iraqi (EErahkee) would pronounce the word: and from there begins the entire chain of connotations...and the distanciation between various understandings of the world by different linguistic groups. It all starts at the very way an element is pronounced and carries on, through the vast mythological realm that has created the universe for the given population. Whether in Columbia, in Iraq or Japan or Germany or or or, the American military people (and any other military personnel somewhere else) are schooled in the way of their concepts and the constellation of meanings attached to them. Their subsequent action, and perhaps more importantly, the modes of rationalizing or justifying these actions, are founded on an understanding that is not purely militaristic (enemy, bad guy), but fashioned through a prism that creates the appropriate conditions for those actions/justifications.
The name of the game is this: the fashioning of concepts (‘insurgents’, ‘terrorists’) that have certain parente with what a native population (I’m talking u.s. here) readily understands, fitting perfectly an invented conceptual framework (‘middle east’, ‘islamic world’), themselves with overriding images that ‘translate’ the region (mullahs, turbans, violence, beards, veiled women) and are deeply imbedded in the consciousness of the target population, images and frameworks that are constantly updated and adapted through a host of translatory grids. The undeniable impossibility of translation in countless instances and situations, the illusion of translation, are well-suited for the launching of campaigns, and the invention of a reality, that suggests the necessity of these very campaigns.
As always, the battle begins at the outset, at the name: and the relationships with the world and the Other are launched, andactions taken, and justified, and rationalized, and and and. The right names will allow the rosy pictures, the right names will trigger the haughty campaigns, the right names will convince and comfort, all the populaces all around, clamoring for the familiar, and the accessible, within their own world views."
[map via Tracy at the psychohistory list/ text via Amir Parsa at the underfire forum.]
October 18, 2004
![Yahoo link]](http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/041027/ids_photos_ts/r3394897831.jpg){kind=link}
"We're an Empire"
"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."
..from a senior aide (unnamed)."
last paragraph via: LeShow
~More: Without a Doubt by Ron Suskind; NYTimes
"In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend - but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.
The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality - judiciously, as you will - we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."
article
~Xymphora has a different take on the "We're history's actors" Bush doctrine:
"That is exactly how psychopaths think and act. 'Reality' is as much a quibble to them as is morality. Strong people do what they want, and weak people just get to watch. The unfortunate thing is that the United States is powerful enough now that it can act without paying any attention to the opinions of anybody else, or even to the apparent realities which would normally constrain it. The American government seems to be able to borrow an unlimited amount of money, the American military has an apparently unlimited number of troops (at least after the draft is introduced), and no other country appears to have enough military power to challenge the decisions of the Bush Administration. Of course, at some point the 'realities' catch up to the psychopaths. The borrowing can't go on forever, and the American death toll will eventually reach politically unacceptable levels... By the time the shit hits the fan, the psychopaths will be long gone, and everybody else will have to pick up the pieces, if there are any pieces left to pick up. The strength of the United States means there is no check on the bad decisions of evil people, and the strength of the United States is thus its weakness."
link
Widespread Torture at Guantanamo Confirmed
(Broad Use of Harsh Tactics Is Described at Cuba Base)
By Neil A. Lewis The New York Times
One regular procedure that was described by people who worked at Camp Delta, the main prison facility at the naval base in Cuba, was making uncooperative prisoners strip to their underwear, having them sit in a chair while shackled hand and foot to a bolt in the floor, and forcing them to endure strobe lights and screamingly loud rock and rap music played through two close loudspeakers, while the air-conditioning was turned up to maximum levels, said one military official who witnessed the procedure. The official said that was intended to make the detainees uncomfortable, as they were accustomed to high temperatures both in their native countries and their cells.
Such sessions could last up to 14 hours with breaks, said the official, who described the treatment after being contacted by The Times.
"It fried them," the official said...
story
~Is this reporter purposely ameliorating what the US Military did? Is he afraid of calling it torture?
I know what it is... The NYTimes is practicing journalism, taking the position there's two sides to every story. What's looks like torture to anyone with a fifth grade reading level, but is called "aggressive techniques" by the Pentagon is best described in the headline as "harsh tactics". They're maintaining their objectivity. Also they wouldn't want to anger their contacts at the White House, State Department or Pentagon?
Hanzi Smatter????
"Dedicated to the misuse of Chinese characters in Western culture"
"Crazy Diarrhea" @
Overheard at Starbucks
"Pedophiles?!"
"Where did you think prostitutes came from?"
"Is incest pedophilia?"
October 17, 2004
A Walk in the Woods
University of Illinois Extension-Schools Online:
teacher's guide
On the Naturalness of Things
article by Mary Catherine Bateson
~fun in the great outdoors
The Least of These
...as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.' - Matthew 25:31-40
article
~Article contrasts Bush's religious convictions with his administration's treatment of prisoners it has taken since 9/11.
(I've no problem with Jesus. Unfortunately his followers have shown there's nothing he can tell me.)
Eames Office Products
Beautiful Details: Photos / Catalog: All Categories/
Films/ Charles Eames: Wikipedia
Life Sentence, Chemical Castration Ordered for Molester
The Associated Press
LIVE OAK, Fla. -- A man who molested five children, one as young as 4, has been sentenced to four life terms in state prison and the rare punishment of chemical castration.
Kelly William Woods, 37, was convicted in August of six counts of sexual battery and four counts of sexual misconduct for incidents since 1997. Judge Thomas Kennon handed down the sentence Thursday.
Woods' attorney, assistant public defender Cliff Davis, said Friday he would appeal.
Although chemical castration has been ordered before, the state Corrections Department has never carried out the sentences.
url
~I thought chemical castration was a plot device on law and order tv shows or something stressed-out soccer-moms talked about. I didn't know the states could punish sex-offenders with it.
Fahrenheit 9/11 Denied Cable Access
A cable pay-per-view company has decided not to show a three-hour election eve special with filmmaker Michael Moore that included a showing of his documentary ``Fahrenheit 9/11,'' which is sharply critical of President Bush.
story
October 16, 2004
News of the Weird
According to an August Pensacola (Fla.) News Journal report, a
huge oak tree on Cypress Street in Fort Walton Beach, Fla., marks
the spot of a major open drug and prostitution market that is the
scene of several dozen arrests every month. The Sheriff's office,
weary of the constant parade of crimes and arrests and pressured by
a community activist, recently told county officials that it had
arrived at a solution: It asked permission to cut down the tree.
[Pensacola News Journal, 8-26-04]
#871
How to Get Off the Feds' 'Do Not Fly' List
via Politech:
"...... all you need to do to get off a do-not-fly-list is modify your name in some way by adding a middle initial or a suffix. In other words, the folks responsible for the list are too stupid to figure out how to prevent false positives, but a true terrorist can get off the list by adding a middle initial. This information comes directly from "TSA Spokesman Mark Hatfield"...
A Common Name Can Be a Curse
"TSA spokesman Mark Hatfield said using middle initials, middle names or even suffixes such as “Jr.” could cut down the number of “false positives.” "
article
Department of Defense Nonlethal Weapons and Equipment Review:
A Research Guide for Civil Law Enforcement and Corrections
...provides a detailed equipment review designed to give civil law enforcement organizations a greater understanding of DoD's nonlethal weapons program and currently used nonlethal technologies. Five categories of nonlethal technologies are reviewed: chemicals, electrical devices, blunt impact munitions, directed energy, and miscellaneous or hybrid systems. summary /link to document pdf / with descriptions & photos of equipment
~For example from pdf pg.42:
Dissuader Laser Illuminator
Manufacturer: SEA Technology Vendor: SEA Technology Approximate Cost: $5,000.00
Participating Services: Air Force
Description: This handheld laser “flashlight” generates an extremely bright, variable-width beam of red light. The beam is certified eye-safe at all ranges and under all tactical conditions. The laser beam sends a language-independent warning and challenge that forces adversaries signal their intent to retreat, surrender, or continue aggressive behavior. It dissuades and/or delays adversaries by producing an overpowering glare or flash blinding the individual.
Operational Capability/Use: The laser illuminator is suitable for law enforcement missions where revealing a drawn weapon is not advisable. This device can be used as handheld augmentation to sidearms carried on law enforcement missions; use of a sidearm enables quick response.
~See-through-wall radar, microwave-zappers, and pesticide/sarin/allergen poppers are not listed.
Candidate Kerry
"Kerry's appeal comes from the fact that he's a snowboarding liberal Democrat from Mass as well as a double-speaking, industry-lobbied, economic conservative.
The first two years are going to be very tight for Kerry, I don't believe that he'll have the chance to go on vacation for the month of August and wait for two buildings to be demolished in a major city before the country backs him.
Instead, he'll need to work hard for two years until the midterm election in order to switch the Senate and House onto the Blue side. Then, I think that it'd be time to demolish the Republican party piece by piece.
First, take all of the scandals from the past, Enron, Halliburton, justification for war, prisoner torture, and so on, and bring them up by insisting investigations into all of them, publicize--sort of a de-Nazification of the US, and vent the involvement of republican party members and their contributors. Apply jail time, major fines, and make it hell for these guys by embarrassing them with 'revealing' magazine articles.
In four years, redefine Republican to mean corrupt war-monger and make the politicians that represent the party walk in cuffs in front of the camera. If the economy is still trash, at least the other option would appear to still look worse." -D
(image via alltheweb/ text an edited e-mail to my suggestion that "Kerry = Carter?")
Motorola Home Monitoring System
The Motorola Home Monitoring and Control solution is a coordinated system of wired and wireless cameras, wireless door/window sensors and environmental devices that work together to provide real-time information about what’s happening in your home.
The included Home Monitoring and Control software provides an easy way to configure and control the System. Right from the desktop, the software lets you monitor real-time activity from cameras and sensors placed around your home. You can program the software to automatically record activity from these sensors whenever a certain event occurs (such as a door opening), and/or have a notification sent to a mobile phone or email account.
Further, you can program one device to trigger another, extending your security options. For example, if a door or window sensor is triggered, that event can enable a wireless camera to record the event.
Consumers can extend the functionality of the System by adding extra devices. For example, by connecting a wireless door sensor, working parents can set up an email notification to let them know when the kids open the front door after arriving home from school.
The Motorola HMEZ1000 Starter Kit has an MSRP of $279.99. Prices of additional accessories vary.
press release
~Just in time for X-mas. It'll notify you via phone or e-mail that your kids are home or someone's broken into your apartment, and can 'enable' a recording of those events, but it can't provide real-time video surveillance via the internet.
Giving workers internet video access to their homes and latch-key kids must be too revolutionary...e.g. too disruptive for established time-management practices.... because the technology, the gadgets, that could make it possible are cheaply available today.
FujiFilm "Face Search"
FujiFilm has a new technology for searching pictures, which is called "Face Search." It works just like it sounds.
The basic process consists of highlighting a face in one picture, pressing "search," and the software will display other pictures that feature the same person.
I'd like to see this in action myself before investing any money on a product because it features this technology. Scanning images for particular objects never has had great results...
b