Spitting Image

Damage to the prefrontal cortex increases utilitarian moral judgements

In other words, people with a rare injury - damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex - expressed increased willingness to kill or harm another person if doing so would save others’ lives.

The findings are the most direct evidence that humans’ native revulsion to hurting others relies on a part of neural anatomy, one that evolved before the higher brain regions responsible for analysis and planning.

entry/etc. http://dericbownds.net/2007/03/damage-to-prefrontal-cortex-increases.html | MindBlog

>another blog entry BPS Digest (March 30)

~Building the perfect soldier.

[photo not from above]

as many as 7.3 million Americans know someone killed or injured in Iraq and Afghanistan

(New calculations show)

press release from a reader's comment:
http://repositories.cdlib.org/imbs/socdyn/sdeas/vol1/iss4/art3/

from Diederik

~Last week on C-Span Chalmers Johnson said while comparing America's professional military now to the draftees used in previous wars that only one Yale graduate was killed during the Viet Nam War.
And the Yallies still wonder how that ever happened, why he didn't go for his doctorate and get extensions until the war was over?

(It took me a few minutes to remember the buzz-word 'tipping point'. 20 million?)

[photo from defenselink\ not above links]

Blog: Overheard Starbuck

http://overheardstarbuck.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html

With five private jets, Travolta still lectures on global warming

His serious aviation habit means he is hardly the best person to lecture others on the environment. But John Travolta went ahead and did it anyway.

But although he readily admitted: "I fly jets", he failed to mention he actually owns five, along with his own private runway.

He spoke of the importance of helping the environment by using "alternative methods of fuel" – after driving down the red carpet on a Harley Davidson.

It [global warming] is a very valid issue," Travolta declared. "I'm wondering if we need to think about other planets and dome cities.

story | This Is London

thanks Conscientious

~Lifestyles!

Bomb-sniffing robots put to test in Iraq

As it increases its use of robots in war zones, the military will begin using an explosive-sniffing version that will allow soldiers to better detect roadside bombs, which account for more than 70 percent of U.S. casualties in Iraq.

There are nearly 5,000 robots in Iraq and Afghanistan, up from about 150 in 2004. Soldiers use them to search caves and buildings for insurgents, detect mines and ferret out roadside and car bombs.

Fido... represents an improvement in bomb-detecting military robots..

The bomb-sniffing sensor is part of the robot, with its readings displayed on the controller along with camera images. Otherwise, a soldier would have to approach the suspect object with a sensor or try to attach it to a robot. The new robot has a 7-foot manipulator arm so it can use the sensor to scan the inside and undercarriage of vehicles for bombs.

Philip Coyle, senior adviser to the Center for Defense Information in Washington, said the robots could be helpful if they are used in cases where soldiers already suspect a bomb. But he said explosive-sniffing sensors are susceptible to false positives triggered by explosive residues elsewhere in the area, smoke and other contaminants.

story | MSNBC

Hicks Convicted of Terrorism

Appearing at the U.S. military's war crimes tribunal court at Guantanamo on Friday, Hicks acknowledged that he trained with al-Qaida in Afghanistan and fought with its forces against U.S. allies in Afghanistan in late 2001 for two hours and then sold his gun to raise cab fare and tried to flee to Pakistan.

[In this photo released by the Hicks family shows David Hicks, the only Australian among the 500 terror suspects awaiting military trial at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba....He is the first Guantanamo detainee charged under new rules for military trials, or commissions, adopted after the Supreme Court cast aside the previous system in June. ]

He denied having any advance knowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Hicks is not accused of actually shooting anyone.

To finalize his plea, Hicks must convince* (the judge, Marine Corps Col. Ralph) Kohlmann that he knowingly lent his services to an international terrorist group engaged in an armed conflict with the United States.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17870312 | MSNBC

~Crikey! There's a terrorist at the barbie!

So why didn't they have these trials in 2002 before we invaded Iraq? Why are we only getting around to the people supposedly most responsible for the 9/11 killings in New York City and DC now?

*Maybe Hicks can threaten the judge: suggest to the Colonel al Qaeda's gonna get him? Would that suffice to finalize his plea?

previous Spitting Image entries for david hicks

Art: Cosimo Cavallaro

My Sweet Lord

[photo from http://www.cosimocavallaro.com/

Cosimo Cavallaro...was making a cheese mess in a NYC apartment [NOTW 598, 7-23-1999], and now he checks in with a 200-lb., anatomically correct, milk-chocolate statue of Jesus, right on time for Easter (with, of course, several Catholic spokesmen going nuts) (but for the record: only 485,000 calories and 27,000g/fat but, hey, 17,280 percent of your daily requirement for calcium!).

from Daily Weird 3/30/2007

info/reactions: story | Seattle Intelligencer

update:
Gallery Told to Shut Down Chocolate Jesus Display; Catholic Cardinal Called It 'Sickening'

"In this situation, the hotel couldn't continue to be supportive because of a fear for their own safety," , said Matt Semler (the creative director of
the Lab Gallery in midtown Manhattan)

Chocolate Jesus Show Cancelled | ABC News

~Maybe if the statue was made from white chocolate?
No it's Jesus' exposed chocolate penis that's more offensive?

Why didn't the artist or the gallery have this statue blessed before installation? According to this (12/06) LA Times story Believing is Seeing "The faithful have spotted holy images in the ordinary: chocolate, tortillas and even a grilled cheese...

In 1977, a woman making burritos in Lake Arthur, N.M., saw the face of Jesus in the pattern of skillet burns on a tortilla. She built a shrine to house the Jesus tortilla, which was blessed by a priest, and thousands of people from across the country came to gaze and pray for its divine assistance in healing their ailments."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-tortilla15dec15,0,5992557.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Would a blessing from a priest (or a bishop, this gallery is in Manhttan) have headed off the threats and bomb scares? Perhaps things are different now then in 1977, the Catholic Church doesn't need to scatter holy water willy-nilly anymore. The Christian right has an anointed one in the White House.
Maybe if the gallery promised the church a percentage of the ticket sales and the artist an off-the-top percentage of his earnings in perpetuity the show would've gone on?

---A definite lack of foresight on the artist's and gallery's part. You can't do things in Manhattan like you could just ten years ago.

(The factory in China that was to supply miniature chocolate Jesus' in conjunction with this show is melting them down and turning them into traditional easter bunnies as this is being written. )

Insurgency & Credibility Commitment in Autocracies & Democracies

This paper suggests a new factor that makes civil war more likely: the inability of political actors to make credible promises to broad segments of society. Lacking this ability, both elected and unelected governments pursue public policies that leave citizens less well-off and more prone to revolt. At the same time, these actors have a reduced ability to build an anti-insurgency capacity in the first place, since they are less able to prevent anti-insurgents from themselves mounting coups. But while reducing the risk of conflict overall, increasing credibility can, over some range, worsen the effects of natural resources and ethnic fragmentation on civil war. Empirical tests using various measures of political credibility support these conclusions.

Source: World Bank Policy Research Working Paper

press release http://www.docuticker.com/?p=12125

>see also The American Empire Project specifically the book "Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic".

~They fear our love.

Entering the Dragon’s Lair

Chinese Antiaccess Strategies and Their Implications
for the United States

"...to interfere with our ability to deploy or operate military forces... within a theater far from U.S.territory."

press release w/links to pdfs:
http://www.docuticker.com/?p=12128

summary: http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2007/RAND_MG524.sum.pdf | Rand Corp.

>compare and contrast on Spitting Image The American Empire Project

AIPAC Court Considers "Silent Witness" Procedure

The forthcoming trial of two former officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee who are charged with mishandling classified information "won't be a closed trial," said Judge T.S. Ellis III at a March 15 hearing (pdf), notwithstanding some "hyperbolic" suggestions to the contrary.
But there is an open question as to whether the prosecution may employ something called the "silent witness" rule. That refers to the practice of providing evidence to the defense and to the jury, but withholding it from the public.

more:
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2007/03/aipac_court_considers_silent_w.html

~(No, I am not a lawyer but I play one in my dreams.)

Documentary: Eloquent Nude

The Love and Legacy of Edward Weston and Charis Wilson

http://www.nwdocumentary.org/weston/index2.html

more blog entry | Fleshbot

Nude, 1936 @

"I am stimulated to work with the nude body, because of the infinite combinations of lines which are present with every move," Edward Weston - The Daybooks.*

* & photo from http://www.edward-weston.com/edward_weston_nudes.htm

Porn Pop-Ups On Trial

Julie Amero, the Connecticut substitute teacher who was convicted on four counts of "risk of injury to a minor"...faces a maximum sentence of 40 years in jail because of her computer illiteracy and bad lawyering. (Even the jurors agreed that her true crime was not the porn itself, but her failure to think of the children.) Since the verdict made national headlines computer experts, bloggers and other people with common sense have rallied to her cause, demanding an investigation or at the very least a new trial—and incredibly, they may have actually done some good. Reports from earlier this week indicated that the DA might be reconsidering his overly-aggressive stance, and now comes word that today's sentencing hearing has been postponed (for the second time)...

more (NSFW) http://fleshbot.com/sex/news/porn-pop+ups-on-trial-248148.php | Fleshbot

>earlier on Spitting Image (SFW) teacher porn

Alice Illustrations other than Tenniel

for example:

by Stefano Bessoni

many more w/links to artists: http://hugo-sb.wetpaint.com/page/Alice%20Illustrations%20other%20than%20Tenniel | HugoStrikesBack!

Blog Entry: Diatom Diatribe cont.

Who would have thought that so many out there share my love for these astonishing microscopic lifeforms. But what’s not to love? Diatoms, like my other all-time favourite, slime mould, are neither fish nor fowl. Which is to say that they are neither plants nor animals, and are not bacteria or fungi either.

In fact they are one-celled protists which, like plants, contain chlorophyll but, uniquely, diatoms are encased in an asymmetric silica shell...

Not only are there more than 100000 species of the cute little critters, they are found everywhere that there’s water including on and in soil.

I could go on and on about them – especially since pointy-headed science types are now looking at using them as components of nano-machines, but it was the mural and diatoms use in cultural activities that have excited most of my correspondents..."

more/links http://museumofdust.blogspot.com/2007/02/diatom-diatribe-cont.html | Museum of Dust

Fake Maritime Boundaries

The Iran/Iraq maritime boundary shown on the British government map does not exist. It has been drawn up by the British Government. Only Iraq and Iran can agree their bilateral boundary, and they never have done this in the Gulf, only inside the Shatt because there it is the land border too. This published boundary is a fake with no legal force.

http://www.craigmurray.co.uk/archives/2007/03/fake_maritime_b.html

thanks Conscientious

>compare and contrast: US Silent on Detained Iranians

As the Western media focus on the fate of 15 Britons detained for allegedly trespassing into Iranian waters, the status of five Iranian officials captured in a US military raid on a liaison office in northern Iraq on January 11 remains a mystery.
Even though high-level Iraqi officials have publicly called for their release, for all practical purposes, the Iranians have disappeared into the US-sanctioned "coalition detention" system that has been criticized as arbitrary and even illegal by many experts on international law.

"The US hasn't articulated the legal grounds under which it detains 'combatants'," said John Sifton, a researcher with Human Rights Watch. "They regularly conflate criminal terrorism, innocent civilians and real combatants on the ground, and throw them all into the same pot. The vagueness of the war on terror has supplied the soil under which all this has flourished."
US detention camps in Iraq currently hold more than 15,000 prisoners, most of whom, like the Iranians, have been held without charge or access to tribunals for months, even years...

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IC31Ak04.html By Khody Akhavi | Asian Times

~Hey maybe the Brits are planning to lead the invasion force this time?
The Labour Party needs to shed it's poodle image.
On to Tehran!!

More likely after the "pre-emptive strikes" from the RAF fields (aka US bases) in the UK against Iran's "secret nuclear bomb-making sites" both Bush and Blair will solemnly declare more or less permanent states of emergency for their countries.
The elections won't need to be canceled if the parties now in power have a few months to turn their voters into security basket-cases.
In times of war military expediency is more effective than political rhetoric in silencing even the most reasonable critics?

Iran's Bushehr Nuclear Plant large\url

from the (mega-page) Iran Nuclear Resources\ not above

Distance

~Movie still, outdoor sculpture exhibit, painting, snapshot, defenselink , virtual room.

Lyrics: Tin Foil

Late New Year's Eve, paper hat on your head,
it was hard to believe that you'll ever be dead.
But that dream where you're falling you've had since you're five
is a bird on your shoulder that whispers goodbye.

What is moving will be still. What is gathered will disperse.
What has been built up will collapse. All your dreams are fulfilled.

Evil Knievel shot up from dead grass.
And I loved him better each time that he crashed.
Liza Minnelli spent a month in a bed.
She was certain that Skylab would fall on her head.

What is moving will be still. What is gathered will disperse.
What's been built up will collapse. All your dreams are fulfilled.

(whistles)

Last night I dreamed that I dug my own grave
and I climbed down inside to patiently wait.
Down in the ground while I breathed the cold air
blackbirds came down there to nest in my hair.

What's moving will be still. What is gathered will disperse.
What has been built up will collapse. All your dreams, all of your dreams, are fulfilled, are fulfilled, are fulfilled, are fulfilled.

by the Handsome Family http://www.handsomefamily.com/Nlyrics.html

Cash or X-Box: Police Offer Either for Graffiti Crime Tips

Garner (NC) police are offering anyone who can provide information that leads to graffiti vandals wanted for recent crimes their choice of a video game system or cash.
It is part of their effort to seek information about several acts of graffiti vandalism in the town within the past few weeks.
Authorities say informants who provide sufficient information to arrest and prosecute offenders will be rewarded their choice of $500 or a Microsoft X-Box, Sony Playstation 3 or Nintendo Wii.

"We believe the offenders, as well as those who may know about the crimes, are young people in our area," Garner police Chief Tom Moss said. "We hope this kind of reward motivates them to provide us with information we need to prosecute the offenders.

press release | WRAL.com

~I'ld prefer a "get-out-of-jail-free-card".

Iowa State to unveil the most realistic virtual reality room in the world

AMES, Iowa -- You're high above the desert peaks. Your aircraft are approaching their targets. Information from instruments, cameras and radar is before your eyes. And with the help of 100 million pixels of bright and vivid virtual reality you're in control of a swarm of U.S. Air Force unmanned aerial vehicles.
That virtual battlespace will be just one of the applications you could experience when Iowa State University's Virtual Reality Applications Center unveils its improved virtual reality room. The (April 26) demonstrations will show off the room's new abilities to produce virtual reality at the world's highest resolution.

Iowa State's C6 opened in June 2000 as the country's first six-sided virtual reality room designed to immerse users in images and sound. The graphics and projection technology that made such immersion possible hadn't been updated since the C6 opened.

(James Oliver, the director of Iowa State's Virtual Reality Applications Center and a professor of mechanical engineering)...is leading the research team that's using C6 to develop a control interface for the military's next generation of unmanned aerial vehicles. The researchers are building a virtual environment that allows operators to see the vehicles, the surrounding airspace, the terrain they're flying over as well as information from instruments, cameras, radar and weapons systems. The system would allow a single operator to control many vehicles.
The C6 upgrade will move that project forward, Oliver said.

press release IAState news

Nanoparticles can track cells deep within living organisms

To the delight of researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, living cells gobbled up fluorine-laced nanoparticles without needing any coaxing. Then, because of the unusual meal, the cells were easily located with MRI scanning after being injected into mice.

press release | EurekAlert

~The inner space weapons race begins! Weird weird diseases to soon follow-- "His freaking pancreas exploded!"--Stay tuned.

Pulsing light silences overactive neurons

Work could lead to non-surgical treatment for epilepsy, Parkinson's

The new MIT research could lead to the development of optical brain prosthetics to control neurons...

Many epilepsy patients have implanted electrodes that periodically give their brains an electric jolt, acting as a defibrillator to shut down overactive neurons. This new research opens up the possibility of an optical implant that could do the same thing, using light instead of electricity. The Media Lab neuroengineering group plans to start studying such devices in transgenic mice this year.

press release | EurekAlert

~"I drew a line
I drew a line for you
Oh what a thing to do
And it was all yellow"

@

The body as (in) curriculum: on wars, complexes and rides

Abstract

In this article the author discusses what he considers to be an ultrastructure of Michel Foucault's pedagogisation of sex, which is the expanding normative imagination of bodies and sexualities as and in curricula. Here the author proposes an inclusive reading of 'curriculum' that departs from the specific scholastic definition, one that embraces the total cultural apparatus that prescribes bodies' chronologies. Body curricula are explored by their being implied in diverse pedagogical paradigms articulating a body's development, specifically its sexual development. As a test-case, he illustrates how alternating stories of 'first sexual experiences' correspond to alternating tales of the body in/as a curricular order, the order that renders bodies 'curricular' and, as such, subject to pedagogical praxis. In an attempt to open up such body curricula to an anthropological digestion, he describes three paradigms of storying virginity, alternatively plotted as a 'war', a 'complex' and a 'ride'.

Author: Diederik F. Janssen a
Affiliation: a Independent researcher. Nijmegen. Netherlands
Published in: Pedagogy, Culture and Society, Volume 15, Issue 1 March 2007 , pages 1 - 17
Subject: Curriculum Subject;

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a775671163~db=all~order=page

>Spitting Image search results diederik

[photo not with above]

The American Empire Project

Americans have long believed that the very notion of empire is an offense against our democratic heritage, yet in recent months, these two words -- American empire -- have been on everyone's lips. At this moment of unprecedented economic and military strength, the leaders of the United States have embraced imperial ambitions openly. How did we get to this point? And what lies down the road?

http://www.americanempireproject.com/

forum

~C-Span over the weekend broadcasted an interview with Chalmers Johnson who was promoting his book "Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic". Mr. Johnson mentioned the number of empires that have fallen just in his lifetime, the British, French, Dutch, German, Russian and others and said that when empires fall, they fall quickly. He figures the federal government's bankruptcy wiill signal the end of the "short happy life of the American Republic". He believes the Chinese and Japanese will soon grow tired of having their loans paid off in increasingly 'worthless' dollars.

It'll be interesting to see how the liberal Democratic Party rules when the shit hits the fan.

[photo not with above]

Australia Updates NCW Roadmap

...its Network Centric Warfare Roadmap a blueprint for achieving a fully network-enabled defense force by 2020.

Rear Adm. Matt Tripovich, the department’s head of capability systems, launched the update at the Australian International Air Show here March 21...

Australia has no “NCW project” as such, Tripovich said at the launch. Instead, the original identified some 48 major projects already in the pipeline that, collectively, will deliver the Australian Defence Force’s network-enabled capability. Together these are worth nearly 28 billion Australian dollars ($22 billion) and range from the acquisition of airborne early warning aircraft and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) to tactical data links, satellite communications systems and amphibious landing ships with integrated command-and-control suites.

A key difference in the new edition of the plan...is the inclusion of the government’s Rapid Prototyping, Development and Evaluation (RPDE) Agency...the agency spends up to 20 million Australian dollars each year funding research and development and studies by combined industry-Defence Department teams...
Some 83 Australian defense companies have joined the agency.
Among its early successes:
---development of a low-cost networking system that allows Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) AP-3C Orion patrol planes flying over Iraq to download surveillance data to handheld computers used by armored and surveillance units on the ground.

--The Coastwatch program will see Surveillance Australia, an Adelaide subsidiary of Britain’s Cobham, operate a fleet of 10 Bombardier Dash 8-200 and -300 surveillance aircraft. Their 10-year, 1.1 billion Australian dollar contract comes into effect in 2008 and will be the largest civil airborne surveillance operation in the world.

--two surveillance helicopters, along with a fixed ground station located in Canberra and two mobile ground stations.
The SIM (Surveillance Information Management) will fuse data from the Dash 8s’ Raytheon SeaVue radars and Wescam WX20 forward-looking infrared sensors. This will be downloaded via satellite data links to the ground stations to be distributed to Coastwatch and Navy patrol boats and other users such as the Australian Federal Police and Australia’s quarantine, fisheries protection and drug enforcement authorities.

--a ruggedized Personal Digital Assistant, a helmet-mounted monocular (one-eye) display to view maps and data, a navigation system and a weapon-mounted fire-control system. ...Some or all of these components would be suitable for inclusion in the Australian Army’s Soldier Combat System. Project Land 125...to equip infantry soldiers and armored vehicles with a suite of sensors, communications equipment and displays.
Future phases of this project were recently combined with an upgrade to the Army’s Battlespace Command Support System program..

-- a multimillion-dollar contract to build the ground-based control and imagery exploitation system for the RAAF’s future unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)...the RAAF plans to acquire a high-altitude long-endurance UAV system worth an estimated 1.5 billion Australian dollars to carry out extended surveillance missions over the ocean, land and coastal areas. The RAAF in January signed a pact with the U.S. Navy to collaborate on the development of a Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS)..
.. the RAAF plans to develop its own suite of ground-based command, control and communications systems, a package dubbed the Integrated Ground Environment...the deal would likely be worth “hundreds rather than tens” of millions of Australian dollars".

--a Maritime Patrol Aircraft variant of the Airbus A319 airliner as a replacement for the RAAF’s fleet of 18 AP-3C Orion patrol aircraft.. The RAAF plans to buy up to nine aircraft, worth an estimated 4.5 billion Australian dollars.

http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?F=2641848&C=asiapac | Defense News

~What happens to all these multi-billion dollar systems and networks if the space junk the NASA Orbital Debris Project is dutifully keeping tabs on begins to interfere with 'ground-based commands'?
Not a problem? They'll just retrofit every system through a series of blimps, 'permanently' flying UAVs or heavily guarded cell-phone like towers to cover all of Australia and far out to sea?

You can't put an actual price on network centric warfare: CoastWatch, Surveillance Information Management, Broad Area Maritime Surveillance; Integrated Ground Environment; the Australian Army’s Soldier Combat System, or Battlespace Command Support now can you?

Ruggedized?

Marines face U.S. probe in Afghanistan deaths

In the March 4 incident in Nangahar province, an explosives-rigged minivan crashed into a convoy of Marines that U.S. officials said also came under fire from gunmen.
As many as 10 Afghans were killed and 34 wounded as the convoy made an escape. Injured Afghans said the Americans fired on civilian cars and pedestrians as they sped away...

(Lt. Col. Lou) Leto, the spokesman at Special Operations Command Central headquarters, said the Marines, after being ambushed, responded in a way that created "perceptions [that] have really damaged the relationship between the local population and this unit."

story | CNN
via Unknown News

more on Spitting Image A Look at Afghan Civilian Deaths/ US Troops Deleted Images

~Imagine that even after the US military deleted most of the images perceptions were created that damaged the relationship between the locals and this unit. These people don't need photos to get wrong ideas about the US military. They must be primitive.

U.S. may tighten rules for military recruiters

WASHINGTON: The U.S. military is considering installing surveillance cameras in recruiting stations across the country, the most dramatic of several new steps to address a rise in misconduct allegations against military recruiters, including sexual assaults on female prospects and bending the rules to meet quotas.
In a letter to Congress obtained by The Boston Globe, a top Pentagon personnel official outlined the initiatives, which also include a ban on recruiters meeting with prospective recruits of the opposite sex unless a supervisor is present.
Recruiters may also be required to give potential recruits "applicant's rights cards," spelling out what a recruiter can and cannot do to get them to enlist, and the military may set up a hot line to report violations...

story | Intn'l Herald Tribune

by way of Unknown News

>Spitting Image search results for "military recruiter"

[photo of public sculpture Sturgis, SD-via google image: "salute"\ not from above links]

My National Security Letter Gag Order

Friday, March 23, 2007; A17

It is the policy of The Washington Post not to publish anonymous pieces. In this case, an exception has been made because the author -- who would have preferred to be named -- is legally prohibited from disclosing his or her identity in connection with receipt of a national security letter. The Post confirmed the legitimacy of this submission by verifying it with the author's attorney and by reviewing publicly available court documents.

The Justice Department's inspector general revealed on March 9 that the FBI has been systematically abusing one of the most controversial provisions of the USA Patriot Act: the expanded power to issue "national security letters." It no doubt surprised most Americans to learn that between 2003 and 2005 the FBI issued more than 140,000 specific demands under this provision -- demands issued without a showing of probable cause or prior judicial approval -- to obtain potentially sensitive information about U.S. citizens and residents. It did not, however, come as any surprise to me.

Three years ago, I received a national security letter (NSL) in my capacity as the president of a small Internet access and consulting business. The letter ordered me to provide sensitive information about one of my clients. There was no indication that a judge had reviewed or approved the letter, and it turned out that none had. The letter came with a gag provision that prohibited me from telling anyone, including my client, that the FBI was seeking this information. Based on the context of the demand -- a context that the FBI still won't let me discuss publicly -- I suspected that the FBI was abusing its power and that the letter sought information to which the FBI was not entitled.

Rather than turn over the information, I contacted lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union, and in April 2004 I filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the NSL power. I never released the information the FBI sought, and last November the FBI decided that it no longer needs the information anyway. But the FBI still hasn't abandoned the gag order that prevents me from disclosing my experience and concerns with the law or the national security letter that was served on my company. In fact, the government will return to court in the next few weeks to defend the gag orders that are imposed on recipients of these letters.

Living under the gag order has been stressful and surreal. Under the threat of criminal prosecution, I must hide all aspects of my involvement in the case -- including the mere fact that I received an NSL -- from my colleagues, my family and my friends. When I meet with my attorneys I cannot tell my girlfriend where I am going or where I have been. I hide any papers related to the case in a place where she will not look. When clients and friends ask me whether I am the one challenging the constitutionality of the NSL statute, I have no choice but to look them in the eye and lie.

I resent being conscripted as a secret informer for the government and being made to mislead those who are close to me, especially because I have doubts about the legitimacy of the underlying investigation.

The inspector general's report makes clear that NSL gag orders have had even more pernicious effects. Without the gag orders issued on recipients of the letters, it is doubtful that the FBI would have been able to abuse the NSL power the way that it did. Some recipients would have spoken out about perceived abuses, and the FBI's actions would have been subject to some degree of public scrutiny. To be sure, not all recipients would have spoken out; the inspector general's report suggests that large telecom companies have been all too willing to share sensitive data with the agency -- in at least one case, a telecom company gave the FBI even more information than it asked for. But some recipients would have called attention to abuses, and some abuse would have been deterred.

I found it particularly difficult to be silent about my concerns while Congress was debating the reauthorization of the Patriot Act in 2005 and early 2006. If I hadn't been under a gag order, I would have contacted members of Congress to discuss my experiences and to advocate changes in the law. The inspector general's report confirms that Congress lacked a complete picture of the problem during a critical time: Even though the NSL statute requires the director of the FBI to fully inform members of the House and Senate about all requests issued under the statute, the FBI significantly underrepresented the number of NSL requests in 2003, 2004 and 2005, according to the report.

I recognize that there may sometimes be a need for secrecy in certain national security investigations. But I've now been under a broad gag order for three years, and other NSL recipients have been silenced for even longer. At some point -- a point we passed long ago -- the secrecy itself becomes a threat to our democracy. In the wake of the recent revelations, I believe more strongly than ever that the secrecy surrounding the government's use of the national security letters power is unwarranted and dangerous. I hope that Congress will at last recognize the same thing.

url | Wash Post

link to readers comments

thanks Conscientious

~After the next terrorist attack on America we'll all be wondering why the Wash Post ever printed this letter from a traitor.

Anna Nicole Smith Finally Reaches Target Weight

NASSAU, BAHAMAS—Former stripper turned Playboy Playmate turned
reality-TV star Anna Nicole Smith has overcome her longtime struggle
with obesity, at last reaching her target weight of 125 pounds,
sources said Monday.

"Anna's been through a lot," said Florida Circuit Court Judge Larry
Seidlin, who became visibly emotional as he spoke to reporters. "But I
think it's fair to say that she hasn't been this happy in years."

more http://www.theonion.com/content/node/59938

thanks http://jmcolberg.com/weblog/

NASA Orbital Debris Program

Cobra Dane radar located on Shemya Island, AK. This phased array radar can detect and track objects as small as 5 cm and is a contributing sensor to the U.S. satellite catalog

70 m Goldstone antenna located near Barstow, CA. When operated as a bi-static radar, Goldstone is capable of detecting 2 mm debris at altitudes below 1,000 km

more from the Orbital Derbris photo gallery

"Get the Latest Orbital Debris News "
Quarterly News (pdfs)

NASA Orbital Debris Program Office: http://orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/

Google News Search: "human growth hormone"

~Using Google News Advanced Search today (and going back 30 days) there are about 5,200 stories with the phrase "human growth hormone" (without the words) -anna -smith

As of this hour there are more than 900 stories with the words anna smith "human growth hormone

The same Advanced News Search as above, anna smith "human growth hormone" except filtering for stories between feb 24 and... yesterday results in 8 links.

I expected an increase in the number of articles mentioning human growth hormones, since the autopsy results of Anna Nichole Smith's death were broadcasted live on two or three cable tv stations this morning.

I don't know how many more mentions of HGH "as used by Anna Nicole Smith!" will be written, or when journalists and publicists will grow tired of the connection. I'll try to remember to look in on these links in a day or two.
I imagine hormone manufacturers will get their marketing people on it toot suite. And will keep their people on it for as long as they can.

Perhaps beloved actresses and actors (who knew?) will announce press conferences and 'come out of the closet' with testimonials about their use and maybe misuse(?) of these substances?

Within a month vitamin manufacturers will be advertising various herbal concoctions as "natural human growth hormones"?

By the end of summer women's magazines will be reporting on the wide-spread abuse of these drugs by teenage girls?

By winter the NY Times will report that teenage boys are abusing growth hormones too?

Within two years a number of class action lawsuits against various vitamin manufacturers will be announced by lawyers representing women whose kidneys, livers and other internal organs were irreparably damage from the above over the counter "hormone" supplements?

Kids will be growing even larger, and faster?

About this time the possession or distribution of HGHs without a prescription will become a felony punishable by a mandatory jail sentence?

Within ten years China will have a basketball league rivaling the NBA?
Soon thereafter the first all-white front five in more than fifty years will take the Celtics to the NBA Championship? (They'll then lose in the WBA Championship Tournament to the Chinese?)

etc.

BookNotes Transcript Search

>for example results for

"photography"

"photographer"

"sontag"

try it yourself (read the transcripts) http://www.booknotes.org/Search/Advanced.asp?QueryText=

Blog Entry: Bringing the War Home/House Beautiful

[Gladiators - Martha Rosler. Photomontage. 2004.]

In Gladiators...the bourgeois home has not only turned out to be invaded, its interior has become inseparable from the mayhem outside its walls. ... The quiet of the affluent residence has been shattered by a police officer, who is apparently arresting a member of the household while heavily armed U.S. soldiers conduct a search and destroy mission through the dwelling.
Viewers of Gladiators may be confused by the chaotic panorama glimpsed through the abode’s huge bay windows. In part it is obviously a distressing Iraqi street scene where smoke from a detonated car bomb wafts by palm trees, but who are the odd looking men rushing the house as they brandish clubs?

*

The photograph depicting them is not a readily identifiable image, even though it’s an Associated Press photo that was widely circulated on the internet. The image documents U.S. Marines of the 1st Division in Iraq, dressed as gladiators and - like a scene from Charlton Heston’s, Ben Hur - holding chariot races with filched Iraqi horses. The bizarre incident occurred at a Marine military base outside of the doomed city of Fallujah on November 6th, 2004, the very eve of the Marine attack that would destroy the "insurgent stronghold" of 300,000 civilians.

AFP account http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1107-02.htm

more http://www.art-for-a-change.com/blog/2007/02/bringing-war-home-house-beautiful.html

**

[photos * & ** from Nothing Can Stop Us Now (2004)/ all links from above]

French Get a Look a Nation's UFO Files

France is the first country to put its entire weird sightings archive online, said Jacques Patenet, who heads the space agency’s UFO cell — the Group for Study and Information on Unidentified Aerospace Phenomena*.

The archive includes police and expert reports, witness sketches (some are childlike doodlings), maps, photos and video and audio recordings. In all, the archive has about 1,650 cases on record and 6,000 witness accounts

press release | MSNBC

*CNES http://www.cnes.fr/web/5038-geipan.php

CNES-TV http://www.cnes-tv.com/site/index_gb.php

~I'm having trouble using the site's search page.

Team Louisiana Report: Army Corps Responsible for Levee Failures

Among the criticisms of the Corps’ levee systems:

5) The levee system was not properly maintained and operated “to assure the required level of protection through time.” In fact, the report says, quite bluntly: “The GNO HPS (Greater New Orleans Hurricane Protection System) was managed like a circa 1965 flood control museum.”

Perhaps most critically, the report determined that the Hurricane Protection System “still provides a substantially lower level of protection than that originally authorized in 1965.” The report also says, “It is evidence of how pervasively under-built the system was that it has cost as much after Katrina to repair the GNO HPS to a marginally stable pre-storm condition as was spent in the previous 40 years.”

http://www.newsinferno.com/archives/1503

[one of New Orleans's dead after levee failures/ not from above link]

Textmap

Finding and Searching for Entities with TextMap, TextMed, TextBlg, and TextBiz

TextMap tracks references to people, places, and things appearing in news text, so as to identify meaningful relationships between them. TextMap monitors the state of the world by analyzing both the temporal and spatial distribution of these entities. We currently analyze over 1000 domestic and international news sources every day. TextMap uses natural language processing techniques to identify entity references and a variety of statistical techniques to analyze the juxtapositions between them.

TextMap is a search engine for entities: the important (and not so important) people, places, and things in the news.

press release/links/etc. | Resourceshelf

for example Textmap entities: http://www.textmap.com/entities.htm

[photo not with above]

papers from the Int'l Conf. on Weblogs & Social Media

for example:

+ On the Evolution of Wikipedia
8 pages; PDF.

+ Social Browsing on Flickr
4 pages; PDF.

+ Visual Analysis of Weblog Content
4 pages; PDF.

more: http://www.resourceshelf.com/2007/03/26/plenty-of-interesting-reading-papers-from-the-international-conference-on-weblogs-and-social-media/

Rodent's bizarre traits deepen mystery of genetics, evolution

Purdue University research has shown that the vole, a mouselike rodent, is not only the fastest evolving mammal, but also harbors a number of puzzling genetic traits that challenge current scientific understanding.

Among the vole's... bizarre genetic traits:

•In one species, the X chromosome, one of the two sex-determining chromosomes (the other being the Y), contains about 20 percent of the entire genome. Sex chromosomes normally contain much less genetic information.

•In another species, females possess large portions of the Y (male) chromosome.

•In yet another species, males and females have different chromosome numbers, which is uncommon in animals.

A final "counterintuitive oddity" is that despite genetic variation, all voles look alike, said (J. Andrew) DeWoody's, former graduate student and study co-author Deb Triant.

"All voles look very similar, and many species are completely indistinguishable," DeWoody (associate professor of genetics in the Department of Forestry and Natural Resources) said.

http://news.uns.purdue.edu/html4ever/2006/060914DeWoodyVole.html (September 14, 2006)

by way of Science Frontiers Newsletter No.169 (Offline)

Bats Avoid Radar Installations

Could Electromagnetic Fields Deter Bats from Colliding with Wind Turbines?

http://www.docuticker.com/?p=12004 | Source: PLoS ONE

~I'm almost certain there are certain radio frequencies that could deter humans from approaching things.
But not so certain that other RFs can have the opposite effect.

Geological survey studies groundwater levels

The missile-shaped probe...will be towed by a helicopter and is part of a United States Geological Survey (USGS) study.

The tube and helicopter are owned by Fugro Airborne Surveys, a Canadian company currently under contract to the USGS to gather information about buried sand and gravel aquifers in three areas of eastern Nebraska.
The tube, which contains equipment mapping geologic structures beneath the earth, is carried about 100 feet above ground level by a helicopter.
"The brake lights really come on when drivers see it,” said Robert Swanson, director of the USGS Nebraska Water Science Center in Lincoln.
The Fugro system has never been used in Nebraska but has been used worldwide to determine oil, gas and mineral deposits.

...anyone observing the helicopter should not be alarmed when they see it fly overhead or pass below the horizon, stated USGS officials.
The retrieved information, including a three-dimensional color-coded model of each surveyed area, will be presented to the Nebraska Department of Natural Resources, which Swanson estimated paid about $300,000 for the project.

story | Fremont Tribune

~So the Fugro system has never previously been used to find water? If so certainly not because of technical problems--aquifers are not that different from gas or oil deposits. It must be the prohibitive cost of the survey. Water is not yet a commodity as valuable as gas or oil.

Film Stills: China Blue

Workers demonstrate how much bigger are their western customers.

Jasmine is leaving her Sichuan village for a factory job and a new life two-day travel away. She won’t be back home for more than a year.

The round-the-clock schedule has Jasmine and other workers fall asleep right on their work piles.

"China Blue takes us inside a blue-jeans factory, where Jasmine and her friends are trying to survive a harsh working environment. But when the factory owner agrees to a deal with his Western client that forces his teenage workers to work around the clock, a confrontation becomes inevitable.

Shot clandestinely in China, under difficult conditions, this is a deep access account of what both China and the international retail companies don’t want us to see – how the clothes we buy are actually made."

more info: http://chinablue.docsite.org/home

Google Groups: News of the Weird

NOTW: http://groups.google.com/group/NewsoftheWeird?lnk=gschg

Daily Weird: http://groups.google.com/group/DailyWeird?lnk=gschg

International Human Rights Research Guide

http://www.nyulawglobal.org/globalex/Human_Rights.htm

~I know this is so not what today's Americans care about. Human Rights issues and concerns will not help our military Win the Peace. Waging our wars against terrorism by obeying international laws and following the Geneva Conventions can only endanger the lives of Americans, or so our leaders tell us and our experts and journalists agree.
Isn't it strange how much of America's past half-century--how many of our conversations--have been about the rights of blacks, women, gays, immigrants, the disabled and others; only to have their struggles and victories--our conversations and soul-searchings--put into perspective by one President and five+ years of war?

[photo google: 'winning the peace'\ WTC Memorial NYC year?]

~Because Americans have enough rights, perhaps not yet enough to share: what we really seem to be lacking now is peace.

When we win the peace, we'll give those people rights like they never had before, like they never could dream of having. Such rights you wouldn't believe.

Mushrooms

47

This summer I’m going to give a class in mushroom identification at the New School for Social Research. Actually, it’s five field trips, not really a class at all. However, when I proposed it to Dean Clara Meyer, though she was delighted with the idea, she said, “I’ll have to let you know later whether or not we’ll give it.” So she spoke to the president who couldn’t see why there should be a class in mushrooms at the New School. Next she spoke to Professor MacGyver who lives in Piermont. She said, “What do you think about our having a mushroom class at the New School?” He said, “Fine idea. Nothing more than mushroom identification develops the powers of observation.” This remark was relayed both to the president and to me. It served to get the class into the catalogue and to verbalize for me my present attitude towards music: it isn’t useful, music isn’t, unless it develops our powers of audition. But most musicians can’t hear a single sound, they listen only to the relationship between two or more sounds. Music for them has nothing to do with their powers of audition, but only to do with their powers of observing relationships. In order to do this, they have to ignore all the crying babies, fire engines, telephone bells, coughs, that happen to occur during their auditions. Actually, if you run into people who are really interested in hearing sounds, you’re apt to find them fascinated by the quiet ones. “Did you hear that?” they will say.

from A Week from Monday: http://www.greylodge.org/occultreview/glor_012/Cage_John_Indeterminacy.pdf

Syllabus finder results: "mushroom hunter"

>not that related: http://fusionanomaly.net/mushrooms.html

http://softvinylmonster.sakura.ne.jp/M1-matango.html

Under Surveillance: The End of Illegal Domestic Spying?

Don't Count On It

[excerpts]

...shortly before the government's uphill appellate-court battle...Gonzalez...announced that the TSP (Terrorist Surveillance Program) would be brought within FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act ). The government now argues that this moots... more than fifty...lawsuits challenging the surveillance, the government also urges dismissal on Catch-22 grounds: the "state secrets privilege" shields such programs, and since the surveillance is secret, the plaintiffs cannot demonstrate the harm that would confer standing to sue.
Open questions include (i) how the FISA court, previously viewed by the administration as too cumbersome, suddenly became agile enough; (ii) whether the FISA court will protect us, given that its legal standards suddenly allowed these "innovative and complex" orders, when the NSA's more relaxed standard previously didn't suffice; (iii) whether the still-secret warrants include constitutionally mandated, fact-based suspicion of individual circumstances or are blanket program-approvals of some kind; and (iv) why we should believe what the administration says now, since the program was masked in secrecy and deception before.

...the NSA has recently complemented its global listening posts and satellites with new technologies, including speech recognition and translation. James Bamford, an eminent chronicler of the NSA...writes that the NSA is "close to achieving" its "ultimate goal of intercepting and reviewing every syllable and murmur zapping into, out of, or through the United States."

Datamining's typical approach—analyzing vast quantities of information instead of targeting based on individualized suspicion—may be fine when used by private companies such as Amazon.com to predict, for example, that a book will interest you based on your purchasing patterns. It is more problematic when secretly used to stigmatize you, deny you benefits or services, criminalize you by taking your actions out of context, or when combined with other databases to constitute what is effectively an intrusive warrantless search.
A report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service recently noted datamining's limitations in counter-terrorism, including issues such as data quality, mission creep (e.g., from counter-terrorism to tax collection or fighting crime generally), human errors in interpretation, terrorist-incident data sets too small to be useful as valid predictive models, false positives, and privacy concerns.

There are now reportedly over 200 datamining programs scattered throughout U.S. government agencies. Although Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) has repeatedly introduced legislation requiring public reporting of these programs, along with their effectiveness, privacy impact, and ways individuals can be informed and opt out, the bills have not yet passed. These continuing datamining programs raise many issues, not the least of which are the missing independent checks-and-balances and the seemingly reversed presumption of innocence, which auger a serious loss of privacy and control over our own intimate information.

complete article http://www.washingtonspectator.com/articles/20070315surveillance_1.cfm by Joe W. Pitts | by way of Politech

~Mr. Pitts believes "it will take...grassroots pressure on the new Congress to achieve real reform. ...to stop this illicit surveillance and to hold accountable those who have ordered it."

Power to the people!

[illus not from above]

What Has Homeland Security Cost?

An Assessment 2001-2005

>a very modest increase compared to the GDP

Authors Bart Hobijn and Erick Sager estimate that homeland security spending climbed from $56 billion in 2001 to $99.5 billion in 2005. Federal spending accounts for $34.2 billion of the roughly $43.6 billion increase, while private sector spending accounts for the remaining $9.4 billion.

Source: Federal Reserve Bank of New York

http://www.docuticker.com/?p=11855

~Chump change for law enforcement, keeping them loyal to the neocons?
A very modest increase when compared to the Bush Adminstration's spending in Afghanistan and Iraq, no doubt.

[photo not from above]

US Advertising Spending Rose in 2006

...led by Internet (35%), the top 100 Spot TV markets (9.1%), Spanish-Language TV (8.1%) and Outdoor (8.1%). Growth in a number of media remained flat or slightly down over last including B2B magazines, Coupons, smaller Spot TV markets, Network Radio, and Local Newspaper.

Source: The Nielsen Company

press release with link to pdf charts & tables.

~If they're selling ads people are buying; if people are buying, stock prices will rise; if stock prices rise then porfolios grow; if portfolios grow service jobs are created in response to the portfolio owners increased spending. It's like ecology, but with money.

Dead Journalists in Putin's Russia

Did you know that nearly twice as many Russian journalists were killed in the 1990s when Boris Yeltsin was president of Russia as in the seven years of Vladimir Putin’s presidency?

Center for Strategic & International Studies press release with link to pdf http://www.docuticker.com/?p=11923

~Gangsters or Russian tradition? I believe the Czars didn't take kindly to criticism either.

Security Monitoring System determines stress via bio-sensor

March 21, 2007 - Security Alert Tracking System (SATS) collects information from reflectance of light on human body, in non-invasive manner, to monitor key vital signs. Worn by employees, wrist-mounted device collects and sends information wirelessly to employer's central monitoring system. If heart rate exhibits unnatural fluctuations, information is captured on wrist unit and transmitted. Receiving system can be configured with video surveillance system to trigger cameras to zoom in on employee.

press release | Thomas.Net

3eyeinc: http://www.3eyeinc.com/products.htm

~I want one each for my wife, kids and dog.
What happens when the wearer takes it off, or if the SATS transmission is interrupted?
I don't think this device can yet sense the difference between stress from fear and for example stress from exercise.
Otherwise it could be also used as a high-tech chastity insurance device?

A Memoir of Chemical Weapons Research

Beginning in the mid-1950s, the U.S. Army conducted research involving thousands of human subjects on various chemical agents, including LSD, BZ and marijuana derivatives, to assess their utility for chemical warfare applications.
Now one of the leading participants in that enterprise, Dr. James S. Ketchum, has published a memoir entitled "Chemical Warfare: Secrets Almost Forgotten."
"It is a detailed autobiographical reconstruction of the Edgewood Arsenal program of evaluating possible incapacitating agents in human volunteers (enlisted men) during the 1960s," he told Secrecy News. "It reveals facts buried in restricted archives for many years and includes a voluminous appendix of research data acquired, much of which has not previously been released to the public."

*

The self-published volume is a candid, not entirely flattering, sometimes morbidly amusing account of a little-documented aspect of Army research.
"I had early misgivings that my [manuscript] might raise some red flags in [the Army] Security Office, but was pleasantly surprised when none appeared," he writes.
Among other things, Dr. Ketchum co-authored the chapter on incapacitating agents in the CBW volume of Textbook of Military Medicine.
"Definitely someone to take seriously," a colleague of Secrecy News wrote. "Although I expect to disagree with much of his opinion, the historical information will be very useful, much of it not available elsewhere."

blog entry | Secrecy News

more info*: http://www.forgottensecrets.net/

Man Beard Blog

http://manbeardblog.blogspot.com/index.html

The Wikipedia Factor in US Intelligence

http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2007/03/the_wikipedia_factor_in_us_int.html

Illus. Dream of the Fisherman's Wife

--by Hokusai url

by way of TANGENCIALIZANDO A HOWARD PHILIP

~Either I've seen this illustration before, or I've dreamt that I've seen something like it. If it was in a dream, it probably was an unsettling one. But today I'm just fine with it. It works on so many levels. (And no I haven't forgiven the surrealists.)

Google Image Search: "o face"

http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&hl=en&safe=off&edition=us&q=o+face&btnG=Search

>o face --Urban Dictionary

"State Secrets" Shield CIA from Torture Allegations

A federal appeals court ruled... (March 2)...that the overriding need to protect "state secrets" makes it impossible to litigate claims by a German citizen named Khaled el-Masri that he was illegally detained and abused by the Central Intelligence Agency in a case of "extraordinary rendition." The appeals court upheld a lower court's earlier dismissal of the proceeding.

El-Masri would not be able to make his case, the court concluded, except by using "[privileged] evidence that exposes how the CIA organizes, staffs, and supervises its most sensitive intelligence operations."
Similarly, said the court, the CIA could not defend itself against the allegations "without using privileged evidence."

http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2007/03/state_secrets_shield_cia_from.html

>Spitting Image search results for el masri

[nameless Abu Ghraib detainee 2003, not Mr. El Masri]

Robot Chopper: The Navy's Smartest UAV

...this helicopter is a true robot, with enough computing power to take off, fly and land on its own.
...this on-schedule and on-budget UAV could be ready to gather intel and relay targeting data as early as 2008. While the Navy coyly describes it as "weapons-capable," firing a barrage of rockets would call for human control — for now.

press release | Popular Mechanics

UbuWeb: Film & Video

http://www.ubu.com/film/

Mating Ball

large/url

from http://www.anakondas.de/cms/front_content.php?idcat=9

~Anacondas.
Kinda looks like the back room of the Tiki Lounge after midnight on Friday and Saturday.

Motivators

~It's an awesome responsibility. Then again I imagine men and woman who think about such abstract things, like another person's life, or who are unable to compartmentalize their lives, seldom qualify for such jobs.
What freedom huh? Freedom to exterminate another human being on command. Wait for it ---steady now---almost there---GO!
Good job.

Congress hands Bush unilateral power to attack Iran

Excerpt: Democratic leaders are stripping from a military spending bill for the war in Iraq a requirement that President Bush gain approval from Congress before moving against Iran. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and other leaders agreed to remove the requirement concerning Iran after conservative Democrats as well as other lawmakers worried about its possible impact on Israel, officials said Monday.

http://www.unknownnews.net/070319-mn.html#checksandwhats

~Oops. They did it again.

U.S. holds infants, Americans in East African secret prisons

http://www.unknownnews.org/070313-warcrimes.html

~"Git er done!"

[photo from defense link\ not with above]

True Confessions? The Amazing Tale of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed

JURIST Guest Columnist Anthony D'Amato of Northwestern University School of Law says the sweeping Guantanamo "confessions" of al Qaeda leader Khalid Shaikh Mohammed rival the scope of those made in the Stalinist purge trials of the 1930s, and should equally prompt us to question the legal process in which they were made...

"...these proceedings took place on board U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, with the Review Tribunal made up of a Captain from the United States Navy, Lieutenant Colonels from the United States Air Force and Marine Corps, and a Gunnery Sergeant as Reporter (all names redacted). A confession before a tribunal is the best evidence of guilt, isn’t it? Whether it’s Guantanamo Bay or the Gulag Archipelago."

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2007/03/true-confessions-tale-of-khalid-shaikh.php

thanks Conscientious

~The US military gets it done! (If they're not hampered by liberal politicians and other traitors.) The most powerful, technologically superior and efficient war machine in the history of the world. USA! USA! USA!

[photo defense link\ not from above]

Photography: Frank Horvat

from Ovid's Metamorphoses 1996

At first she stood uncertain, till the waves
Washed it a little nearer, then for sure,
Though still not close, it was a corpse, but whose
She knew not, yet the omen - a man drowned -
Moved her to tears. "Alas for you", she said,
"Poor soul, whoever you are, and for your wife,
If wife you have." Then nearer, on the waves,
The body floated and the more she gazed,
The more distraught she grew, till close inshore
It came - dear God! - and she could recognize
Her husband! "Oh, it's he", she shrieked and tore
Her hair, her robe and, trembling arms outstretched,
"Is this", she cried "My dearest love, is this -
So piteous - how you come home to me?"

large photo and text from Ovid*:
http://www.horvatland.com/pages/07numerique/03ovide/04_en.htm

[*cont'd]

There was built out from the shore a mole, constructed to break the assaults of the sea, and stem its violent ingress.She leaped upon this barrier and (it was wonderful she could do so) She flew, and striking the air with wings produced on the instant, skimmed along the surface of the water, an unhappy bird. As she flew, her throat poured forth sounds full of grief, and like the voice of one lamenting. When she touched the mute and bloodless body, she enfolded its beloved limbs with her new- formed wings, and tried to give kisses with her horny beak. Whether Ceyx felt it, or whether it was only the action of the waves, those who looked on doubted, but the body seemed to raise its head. But indeed he did feel it, and by the pitying gods both of them were changed into birds. They mate and have their young ones. For seven placid days, in winter time, Halcyone broods over her nest, which floats upon the sea. Then the way is safe to seamen. Aeolus guards the winds, and keeps them from disturbing the deep. The sea is given up, for the time, to his grandchildren.
---from http://www.online-mythology.com/ceyx_halcyone/\ not above

~Silencios?

Horvat's main page http://www.horvatland.com/index_en.htm

~Many photographs

Soundscape as aesthetic category

"And I thought to myself that we do not deserve to live in this world, if we do not perceive it."--Ernest Hemingway

...I had become convinced that photography was the superior documentary medium and lost faith in the ability of sound to document and mirror circumstances in the way that I believed photography had done before I met Horvat. I felt myself being drawn to the opposite notion that listening to a soundscape recording, without any written accompaniment in the form of a booklet or verbal explanation, is a purely aesthetic act.

>lecture at soundscapes voor 2000 conference; Amsterdam, November 1999 http://www.realambient.de/soundscapeasaest.html
by Michael Rüsenberg

~Silence is more spiritual than song. If you go along with John Cage's idea, "There's no such thing as silence. Something is always happening that makes a sound."?

6.
It was after I got to Boston that I went into the anechoic chamber at Harvard University. Anybody who knows me knows this story. I am constantly telling it. Anyway, in that silent room, I heard two sounds, one high and one low. Afterward I asked the engineer in charge why,
if the room was so silent, I had heard two sounds. He said, ""Describe them."" I did. He said, ""The high one was your nervous system in operation. The low one was your blood in circulation.""

from http://www.greylodge.org/occultreview/glor_012/Cage_John_Indeterminacy.pdf Indeterminacy by John Cage

or

Hold fast enough to the Silence/
And of the ten thousand things in the world/
All can be worked on by you.---LaoTzu

from We've Ruined the Silence

[photo not with above]

Illustration: My Morning Sound Map

from: http://infotogo.gallaudet.edu/567/567.html

~My morning sound map is nothing like this. Missing is the radio alarm; the traffic noises increasing on the street out front; depending on which way the wind's blowing--airplanes taking off; footsteps with bathroom water music accompanied by beeps, phone ringing, banging cabinets & drawers; family grunts, groans, & bizness talk; the freeway traffic bubbling over in the background; maybe bird songs (the redwing black birds are back) if I'm paying attention; murmured and mumbled goodbyes kiss-kiss then doors opening whoosh and closing zoom-zoom; or kiss-kiss doors etc. zoom zoom then murmurred and mumbled goodbyes.

Google News Search: "continuum"

for example "the Missouri Coalition Celebrating Care Continuum Change"

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=continuum&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=in (some 1,700 news stories)

~"Continuum" is one of those cool sounding words marketing people have found useful.

[illus. google: continuum\ not from above]

Picture People

example #17 : MINI-DESIRE

Love At First Sight (1)

No one can make you fear the ordinary and everyday objects of life like Stephen King: I never looked at a car (or my mother, who has the same name) the same way again (just kidding Momma). You get caught back up in the petty and absorbing world of 70's teenagers, and you get into the evil, black abyss that is the haunted "car." You even feel like every creaky old man you encounter could be Roland D. LeBay, and his "single minded purpose and never-ending fury" will leave you beathless at times.
I have regarded and re-regarded and re-regarded and re-regarded these pictures, and still I find a new slant everytime. Breath-taking and chilling all at once. If you like going to bed with goosebumps and with a night-light on, this is essential. Get them!!!

(1) The object of sensual desire is by nature another desire. The desire of the senses is the desire, if not to destroy oneself, at least to be consumed and to lose oneself without reservation. Now, the object of my desire does not truly respond to it except on one condition: that I awaken in it a desire equal to mine.
(1) Stephen King. Christine. 1983.
(1) Bataille. The Bataille Reader. 1997. 265.

more mini-desire photos http://www.paetau.com/picturepeople/?id=17

PICTUREPEOPLE is an independent artistic (monthly) e-mail project by Rüdiger Heinze (writer) and Kristofer Paetau (visual artist) without any commercial purpose. It concentrates on the human representation in found amateur photography. The photographs become part of fictions - due to their re-contextualisation - and reveal different phenomena in human representation, interrogating mainly cultural and social issues, thus making connections to other fields of representation. The text accompanying each series of pictures serves as an introduction - hopefully leading to further reflexions.

more picture people (60 galleries)
http://www.paetau.com/picturepeople/

from http://consumptive.org/

~This is it.

More than 1 Million Pages of Gov't Documents Removed from Public View Since 9/11

story | AP

archived story with related links | Resource Shelf

~Those are documents paid for by US taxpayers. (The Bush Administration has certainly reformed the Republican Party's ideas about small government.)

Photocopiers: The newest ID theft threat

Newer models have hard drives that record what has been duplicated

story | ComputerWorld

via Aberrant News

~Neurologists and doctors don't talk about human memory or other mental functions in terms of bytes do they?
I wondering how old will I be when my toaster has more memory then I do.

[illus. google\ not with above]

Article: Paedophile Cultures:

Child Sexual Abuse & the Constuction of the Paedophile in British & American Cultures by C. Jason Lee

[excerpts]

The fear and cry of chid sexual abuse, a very real phenomenon in the 1980s and early 1990s, may point to something other than its literal meaning. An obsession with the inner child, often an abused voiceless child, began in the 1960s. This, added to developments in surveillance technology in the 1970s, and the immense popularity of confessional television shows in the 1980 and 1990s, led to the notion that all that is hidden must be revealed. This is society’s ‘wound culture’, part of the American public’s fascination with violently torn and opened private bodies and torn and open psyches (Seltzer, 2000:100). Following the development of so-called ‘truth drugs’ for use with traumatised soldiers during the 1940s in the UK, the notion that the mind contained everything that had happened to the individual, and that this could be fully accessed, became widespread. ... Within the recovered memory movement that began in the US in the 1980s there is the assumption that human memory is identical to that of machines. Given the rising dominance of computer technology since the 1970s, the fact that such an idea took hold is unsurprising.

With the proliferation of film and video technology the mind and body became compared to a machine. As Ofshe and Watters make clear, failure to recall details is explained as either due to using inaccurate recall techniques or a malfunction mechanism in the brain that “wilfully denies access to that information”... According to this belief system, unless one has remembered abuse then one is living in denial and not fully human. Metaphor is replaced with a literalness that is extreme.... Many of those encouraging the recovery of repressed memory claim the revelation of child sexual abuse is, ‘like watching a movie about someone else’s life’ (Bass and Davis, 1994: 73). ...
The influence of film is remarkable. Film and analogies to film are the primary ways in which thought, memory, identity, and truth are comprehended and explained by lay persons and clinicians alike. The eyes are believed to be working as a lens, the brain literally functioning as a magical recorder of every event, that can be replayed, that must be replayed, to reveal any moment in one’s life, making the victim a heroic survivor, the victorious protagonist in their own movie, surviving both apparent abuse and apparent remembering. The most sagacious and perhaps only definite discovery in memory research in the twentieth century was simply and banally, memory is lost over time (Haaken, 1998: 54). Despite this, there is still an ongoing belief in ‘total recall’.

In the 1990s child protection concerns moved from intrafamilial abuse to the abuse outside the family, with interfamilial abuse “reframed, except in the most serious cases, as symptoms of families failing to cope and provide adequate child care standards” (Corby, 2000: 4). A significant swing occurred. The demon was now the evil other, a fear that can be equated with the fear of the foreigner, reversed colonisation, immigration, or with anything perceived as alien.

One hundred years after Romanes scientifically equated children with animals, the majority of the world’s governments acknowledged the rights of the child. On 20 November 1989 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Conventionon the Rights of the Child after 10 years of debate. This came into force on 2 September 1990. By April 1995, 172 states had become parties to the convention, the highest number of ratifications of any treaty, and a further nine states were signatories. 12 countries were neither parties nor signatories...
Because the majority of abusers are trusted kin, the fact that the UN convention stresses the importance of the family is problematic. As Chris Jenks explains, “the family is one of the most dangerous places for children to live in” (Jenks, 1996: 91)...

... the myth of the paedophile as vampire is dangerous as it implies a desire on the part of the victim, a desire for seduction. This myth... has seduced media manufacturers and consumers alike... In societies dominated by observation and control the paedophile is constructed and observed as the untraceable gap in the system, the unstoppable evil escaping and beyond the boundaries of surveillance and containment.

complete google-cached html: http://scholar.google.nl/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=cache:XPQJJ5d64EIJ:155.223.1.158/edergi/interact/141/12.pdf

by way of http://www2.rz.hu-berlin.de/sexology/GESUND/ARCHIV/GUS/BIBLIO16.HTM

[photo not with above links]

Blog: WTFCNN

http://wtfcnn.blogspot.com/

~From Joerg who remarks: "Lots of hard-hitting news from the CNN website." To which I (Stubbornson) must reply, "if you don't like it, change the channel."

(Wait a minute. CNN is Cable Network News. People subscribe to cable tv. Whether they watch CNN or not some of their money pays to keep CNN broadcasting their brand of news...around the world. And there's not a damn thing individual consumers can do to influence the financial arrangements local cable tv providers make with cable tv networks. -- Write your Congressman? Your State Representatives? Now!--
You can block any channel from playing on your home tv, but you can't block CNN and others from getting part of your monthly check.

Television is not yet hip to --jiggy with-- free market principles when it comes to providing the masses with news and information?)

Top 5 Games That Should Be Movies

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17652656/

~Marketing survey?

Numbed by Numbers

["...episodes in which mass murder is neglected involves what’s known as the “dance of affect and reason” in decision-making.]

"If I look at the mass I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.” This statement uttered by Mother Teresa captures a powerful and deeply unsettling insight into human nature: Most people are caring and will exert great effort to rescue “the one” whose plight comes to their attention. But these same people often become numbly indifferent to the plight of “the one” who is “one of many” in a much greater problem. It’s happening right now in regards to Darfur, where over 200,000 innocent civilians have been killed in the past four years and at least another 2.5 million have been driven from their homes.

A recent study I conducted with Deborah Small of the University of Pennsylvania and George Loewenstein of Carnegie Mellon University found that donations to aid a starving 7-year-old child in Africa declined sharply when her image was accompanied by a statistical summary of the millions of needy children like her in other African countries. The numbers appeared to interfere with people’s feelings of compassion toward the young victim.

...feelings of compassion and donations of aid were smaller for a pair of victims than for either individual alone. The higher the number of people involved in a crisis, other research indicates, the less likely we are to “feel” for each additional death.

...writer Annie Dillard was struggling to comprehend the mass human tragedies that the world ignores, she asked, “At what number do other individuals blur for me?” In other words, when does “compassion fatigue” set in? Our research suggests that the “blurring” of individuals may begin as early as the number two

article http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3751 by Paul Slovic

from Consumptive

[photo not from above]

Students Suspended for Using the "V-Word" During "Vagina Monologue" Recital

Author to Appear With Suspended Girls

CROSS RIVER, N.Y (March 10)

The girls were suspended for a day each after they included the word "vagina'' in an excerpt from the play that they read aloud at a school event last week. John Jay High School Principal Richard Leprine said they had agreed not to use the word.

item | Guardian

by way of Unknown News

~When forced to talk about that part of the female anatomy, I prefer the term "snicker-snack".

[illus. stubbornson\ not from above]

Abstract: Do You Know What Your Pre-teens Are Doing?

By: Atwood, Joan. American Journal of Family
Therapy, Oct2006, Vol. 34 Issue 5, p447-467

Marriage and Family Therapists and other mental health professionals are often unaware of the sexual activity of preadolescent girls. The reason for this is the lack of research reporting on the sexual behavior of these young people...The present paper is an exploration into the lives of pre-teenagers' (ages 8–13) sex lives as they reported them in Internet chat rooms. ...Based on reports from over 1,300 pre-teen girls over a five-year time period, the results indicate that for some young girls, their young lives are filled with sexual behavior of one sort or another...

more from the abstract http://lists.topica.com/lists/growingupsexually/read/message.html?mid=1720898848&sort=d&start=2020

by way of GUS

Fun with Photoshop Filters

2X 2X

sloppy mandalas

funds for medical sensor in a pill

Wireless Biodevices Ltd., a spinoff from the University of Glasgow...is set (to commercialize)... a diagnostic pill that can take measurements as it passes through the body, transmitting the data via a wireless link to a small unit attached externally to the patient... An early application is for the detection of early signs of bowel cancer. Potentially the device could be used to detect a large range of medically important markers...

Wireless Biodevices is not the first company to think of developing diagnostic pills. Nearly 500,000 patients worldwide have used a capsule endoscopy procedure enabled by the PillCam from Given Imaging Ltd. (Yoqneam, Israel). Given Imaging had revenues in the fourth quarter of 2006 of $27.5 million...

press release | EETimes

How the Rich Are Destroying the Planet: A Review

[Herve Kempf's new book, "How the Rich are Destroying the Planet."]

"...if nothing happens even though we're entering an ecological crisis of historic gravity, it's because those who have power in the world want it to be this way."

"If there is no justice, what are kingdoms, but vast systems of robbery?"-- St. Augustine

Although the oligarchy may be blind to the public weal, it is vividly aware of what is necessary to maintain and perpetuate its own privileges. We may have great difficulty believing it, but "the global oligarchy wants to get rid of democracy and the public freedoms that constitute its substance."

more: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031507E.shtml

[photo not with above]

Google Searches Used in Murder Case

"...a computer taken from the office of the attorney of Melanie McGuire, did a search on the words "How To Commit Murder.""

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/03/google_searches.html

~Last year didn't an episode of tv's Law and Order use a murder-suspect's internet searches as evidence in getting the character convicted and sentenced to the show's usual 25-years-to-life?
This is old news?

Fusion Center Cash Infusion

The new Democratic Congress continues moving forward on a 9/11 commission bill, part of Speaker Pelosi's so-called 100-hour drive, with the Senate passing its version on Tuesday. Part of that bill includes increased funding for state and local intelligence centers, often referred to in sexy anti-terrorism parlance as 'fusion centers.' States have long complained that they don't get the real lowdown from the feds and that information sharinghas been a one-way flow from the locals to the feds. The pending legislationproposes to increase funding to the centers, though the money may actually federalize the centers -- leading some to charge that the centers are just a way to funnel state and local police info to the feds and to create a domestic intelligence agency like the surveillance happy Brits across the pond.

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/03/fusion_center_i.html

~Spying is sexy: security is sexy. (OK it's not about sex, it's about power however...)

Roving Screeners Surging in Florida's Airports

Travelers and airport workers... may find themselves confronted by roving gangs of security screeners armed with handheld metal detectors and police dogs-- part of a self-described "surge" by the Transportation Security Admininistraton that will soon go nationwide,

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/03/roving_screener.html

~"Surging" is that what the kids are calling it these days?

Male Nude Photography: Male Art

example

Golden Boy ARTIST : Johan Van Breukelen @

more http://manstouch.com/nudephotography.html

~Looking at these I was reminded that photographers' models are doing what they're told to do. They're not posing simply for the fun of it. The 'artful' poses they assume are not something they could find on their own, or would have any use for beyond the camera's lights and lenses These are scenes not events.
(I forget that most photography is very different from the point and shoot 'technique' I practice.)

Book Ad: Gay, Glam, and Gritty Travels in South America

From Machu Picchu to a cocaine purchase in a Bolivian jail—and beyond!

How do you rough it in extreme South American travels and still dare to be different? You Can Run: Gay, Glam, and Gritty Travels in South America follows the intrepid and fantastic—and totally true—adventures of flamboyant gay men through the gritty rough and tough of South America.

http://www.haworthpress.com/store/Product.asp?sku=5846

~Different, gritty and beyond! I wonder if they'll sell this book at "Bed, Bath and Beyond"?

Blog: Pruned

On Landscape Architecture and Related Fields

example: Super-Versaillies

Kansas City Power and Light

During brief lulls in CNN's wall-to-wall coverage of Anna Nicole Smith, we try imagining the complex of rooms from where the Super-Versailles might be monitored and controlled in real-time. Cavernous, hermetically sealed, air conditioned, the ambience of hard drives whirring and clicking, smells of days-old coffee and hot rubberized circuitry. Or none of the above.

Thankfully, the wonderful, if unfortunately non-English, blog Approximation points us to Barco, a Belgian company which specializes in designing and developing solutions for large-screen visualization. A leader in professional markets, they have equipped the control rooms of NASA, traffic management centers, national power grids, broadcast studios, military combat rooms, and the FIFA World Cup international media center.

more pix, words & links http://pruned.blogspot.com/2007/02/super-versailles.html

main http://pruned.blogspot.com/

thanks Consumptive

Cute Bacteria

ebola

more http://www.villiard.com/bacteries-peluches.html

from Conscientious

~For most consumers anything made into a plushie is cute? Then there're others who find plushies a particular source of irritation and yet others driven to distraction by plushies possessed by demons.

Illustration: The Last Supper

The Last Supper

from La Petite Claudine

Photo-blog: The Transitional Image

Moth