Spitting Image

Overheard Starbucks

http://overheardstarbuck.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html

Afghan Civilians Said Killed in Clash

"It appears that ANA (Afghan National Army) and coalition forces fired at clearly identified firing positions," said Maj. Chris Belcher, a coalition spokesman. "Remains of some people who apparently were civilians were found among insurgent fighters who were killed in firing positions in a trench line."

press release | AP

~Notice how the headline questions (with the word 'said') the existence of civilians killed by 'coalition' forces while the spokesman explains the "remains of some people" (women & children?).

You'ld think they'ld learn to avoid 'clearly identified firing positions' by now.

AP (US military?) says 30 killed & wounded, Afghan villagers (the local AP/Afghan reporter??) says 100. Who wants to bet the actual number is closer to 30 than 100? WIth 2-to-1 odds?

Winning the hearts and minds in that other American funded and inspired budding democracy.

>Update:

Witnesses claim a village in British-run Helmand was bombed for three hours...in the Gereshk district late on Friday followed an attempted ambush by the Taliban on a joint US-Afghan military convoy

A count by the United Nations and an umbrella organisation of Afghan and international aid groups shows the number of civilians killed by international forces was slightly greater than the number killed by insurgents in the first half of the year.

Up to 80 Civilians Dead" After US Air Strikes in Afghanistan By Jason Burke | The Observer

Fun with PhotoShop Filters

2X

sloppy mandala

Berlin Politicians Attack Cruise, Scientology

The German Defense Ministry has said it will not permit Tom Cruise to film scenes in a movie about a plot to kill Hitler at historical World War II sites in Berlin. The reason: Politicians don't want Germany to be seen as promoting the Scientology cult.

Cruise's producing partner, United Artists Entertainment CEO Paula Wagner, issued a sharp rebuke, saying that the actor's "personal beliefs have absolutely no bearing on the movie's plot, themes or content."

press release | Spiegel

thanks Conscientious

~Reading this I can't tell if Defense Minister Franz-Josef Jung statement, "there was no question" about whether filming could take place at German facilities means he's singling out this particular film and Cruise's connection to it, or if he's stating a matter of policy, in that no foreign filmakers are granted permits to access certain historic locations.
I.e. does somebody at Der Spiegel have it in for (or lost a bundle of Euros to) Scientology or is a sub-committee at the Bundeswehr (German Military) taking this hard line on Cruise and his fellow cult members? Would Bruce Willis or Vin Diesel in the lead role change their attitude?

Or is the subject matter of the film the deciding factor? And the swipe at Cruise and Scientology a smokescreen?

Wanna bet the Germans grant permits to and help select look-a-like non-historic sites?

Do many films draw protestors while they're being filmed?
What a unique way to create a buzz.

Are all pharmaceutical companies evil? It seems not

It's well known that big pharmaceutical companies only invest money on development of drugs that will give them some sort of profit. They are said to spend more money investing new coronary heart dissease treatments than they spend researching on big killers like malaria just because malaria hits poor countries who cannot pay as much for the treatment as the cholesterous first World.

It seems some people want to prove this statement false and have created "The Institute for OneWorld Health", a self-claimed nonprofit pharmaceutical corp that must have a serious project behind according to the foundations that have given it money.

More info: http://www.oneworldhealth.org/

~A 'nonprofit phamaceutical company'!!

Putting the miracle back into miracle drugs. (As in what's the miracle of miracle drugs if only a small number of people can afford them?)

Do you think this organization will one day be operating inside the USA? Don't we already have federal laws to prevent that kind of drug distribution?

thanks Priapo

Death Row inmate wants a joke to be his final statement

Patrick Knight, 39, has been considering dozens of jokes he has received in recent weeks after soliciting them...

"Lawyer jokes are real popular," he said. "Some of them are a little on the edge. I'm not going to use any profanity if I can find the one I want, or any vulgar content. It wouldn't be bad if it was a little bit on the edge. That would be cool."
The winning joke will be picked from the hundreds he has received both online and through the post by the residents of Death Row.
Farren, whose office prosecuted Knight's 1993 capital murder trial, said: "My impression is he's similar to most of the hoodlums that are on death row, who have no regard for your rights or property, nor mine, and no regard for human life."

story | Daily Mail

thanks Jade Walker

~Mr Knight doesn't get it. Doesn't he know that for those who've murdered or killed without being executed or without being punished (like Laura Bush ) he's the joke?

Germany: New TV Channel Takes on Death and Dying

Starting this autumn in Germany, EosTV -- a 24-hour-a-day, seven-days-a-week television channel devoted exclusively to aging, dying and mourning -- will hit the airwaves. Viewers will be served up documentaries about cemeteries, shows about changing funeral culture, and helpful tips about finding a retirement home or nursing care. Should you be looking to install a stair lift in your home, EosTV will be the place to find information about that too. Death and dying, in other words, right in your living room.

In 2006, Germany saw almost 150,000 more deaths than births, a continuation of a trend that has seen the country's population age dramatically in recent decades...

Working with the funeral home association -- which represents some 85 percent of German undertakers -- (Wolf Tilmann Schneider, the channel's founder) ...is hoping to provide families a video outlet for their mourning as well. Families can buy 30 second slots to create televised obituaries. For a €2,400 fee, the spot will be aired 10 times on the death channel and will also be provided as video on the company's Web site and those of funeral homes.

press release | Spiegel

by way of http://newsoftheweird.blogspot.com/

~Sounds more like a channel about "Aging & Burial". Greater profit margins on products marketed to people not immediately facing the great divide? Or simply more, less depressing products?
I wonder if they'll do a program on pain management?

Internet graveyards?
(I misread this as 'interstate graveyards' and then compounded the error by picturing burials in the median strips or at the autobahn's (i.e. interstates') interchanges.

[photo not with above]

Australia to ban alcohol, pornography for Aborigines

(Prime Minister John) Howard said the sale, possession and transportation of alcohol would be banned for six months on the Aboriginal-owned land (in the Northern Territory) after which the policy would be reviewed. The child abuse report found drinking was a key factor in the collapse of Aboriginal culture, contributing to neglect of children and creating opportunities for pedophiles.
Hardcore pornography also would be banned, and publicly funded computers would be audited to ensure that they had not downloaded such images. The report said pornography was rife in Aboriginal communities and that children often were exposed to it.
Under Mr. Howard's plan, new restrictions would be placed on welfare payments for Aborigines living on the land to prevent the money from being spent on alcohol and gambling. Parents would be required to spend at least half their welfare on essentials such as food, and payments also would be linked to a child's school attendance.
Mr. Howard also called on state governments to send police to the Northern Territory to address a shortage on Aboriginal land there and offered to pay their expenses.*

press release by way of Unknown News

~What's the the point of new laws when the cost and means of their enforcement are glossed over?
What about the children?

US spy chief scraps satellite program, maybe

...known publicly as the next generation of "Misty" satellites. The new satellite was to be a stealthy intelligence spacecraft designed to take pictures of adversaries and avoid detection.
Little is known about the nation's classified network of satellites, which represent some of the most expensive government programs and receive almost no public oversight. Because of their multibillion-dollar price tags, sensitive missions and lengthy development schedules, spy agencies go to great pains to keep details from becoming public.

(Director of National Intelligence Mike) McConnell gave no reason for his recent decision.

...the satellite's true name is not publicly known, but it has been assigned a designation of a letter followed by numbers.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan...would not identify the program McConnell said was being cut and said he remains doubtful it is truly gone. He said its congressional allies could find a way to bring it back to life through a bill. He also noted that the White House has not sent a revised version of its budget to Congress reflecting McConnell's change.

press release via Unknown News

link to "Misty" entry at Global Security.org

link to wiki article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misty_(satellite)

Early Modern Boyhood @ 53rd Annual RSA Meeting

Debates about Boys versus Women as Erotic Objects

abstracts/ more info. http://www.boyhoodstudies.com/board/viewtopic.php?p=271#271

The Renaissance Society of America http://www.rsa.org/meetings/past2007.php

[photo via google: "boys"\ NOT with above links]

Fun...Outdoors

2X

bleed

Yes Men: Vivoleum

June 20, 2007
Viva Vivoleum
Collective efforts to expose injustice and systemic hypocrisy manifest in many different forms. Some people take to the street, others get loud in the blogosphere, while the Yes Men head to the limelight, using web- and email-based trickery to commit sensational acts of 'identity correction,' capture media attention, and ultimately cast their targeted subjects into dubious light. In the past, the Yes Men have impersonated, representatives from Dow Chemical, McDonalds, and the World Trade Organization. On June 14th, Yes Men Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno struck again, taking the stage at Calgary's Gas and Oil Exposition, as Shepard Wolff of the National Petroleum Council and Florian Osenberg of Exxon Mobil. The featured speakers at the costly keynote luncheon, Wolff and Osenberg discussed their plans for Vivoleum, a new fuel made from the deceased human bodies of climate-change casualties. Their message had a twisted logic that doubled as harsh criticism of the oil indu! stry: Vivoleum wouldn't help the environment but would rather ensure the oil industry wouldn't dry up. Wolff and Osenberg were forced off the stage after they began playing a video detailing their first Vivoleum experiment. (See 'Tribute to Reggie'...

*

...as well as *photos and press on their site.) Their performance may not have saved the world from global warming, but it has whipped the press into a frenzy of activity, and the Internet into a cacophony of discussion. The Yes Men have proved, yet again, that two regular guys can put a wrench in big power machinery, with the aid of faked websites and rented suits. In the words of artist and Rhizomer Pall Thayer, 'Viva Vivoleum!' - Lauren Cornell | Rhizome

http://www.vivoleum.com/event/

multi-sensor systems for U.S. border surveillance

FLIR Systems Inc. in Portland, Ore., won a $6 million contract from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency of the Department of Homeland Security for Ranger III multi-sensor systems for use along the southern U.S. border as upgrades to relatively old thermal imaging systems.
The Ranger multi-sensor system integrates a long-range midwave imaging system with a powerful daylight sensor, global positioning system, mapping software, and optional laser rangefinder.
The Ranger imagers can track vehicles from as far away as 12 miles through smoke, dust, and most obscurants, and allows for a programmable search pattern to reduce operator workload.

press release | Military & Aerospace Electronics

~$6 million will buy how many Ranger III Systems? Covering how many miles along the US's southern border?
(There are no small plans, only small people.)

Kinda looks like a robot jack in the box. Wearing a hat and stretching its 'neck' to take a peek with one creepy bloodshot eye and one squinty eye. I like its desert camouflage cape. Tres chic. That it's designed to bring gunships, jeeps and law enforcement officers is what we're learning to expect from odd looking boxes with lenses, isn't it?
What was the name of that movie in which an African or Australian Bushman finds a Coca-Cola bottle in the desert? An encounter with Ranger III would not be like that.

Photography: Pamela Crimmins

florida morning 2005*

*more photos http://www.littlejohncontemporary.com/Crimmins/index.html

a conversation with Pamela Crimmins | Art Critical

DNA Results to be Added to Ancestry.com

...offering customers the possibility of finding DNA matches in the site’s 24,000 genealogical databases.

Users can easily connect with and discover lost or unknown relatives within a few generations, as well as gain insight into where their families originated thousands of years ago

http://www.resourceshelf.com/2007/06/20/genealogy-research-dna-results-to-be-added-to-ancestrycom/

~Should be helpful in finding possible donors for organ transplants.

Sustainable Development Database

Find out what cities, counties, and states are doing to improve their carbon footprints, quality of life and resource efficiency. Find the latest programs in urban ecology.

http://www.resourceshelf.com/2007/06/21/resource-of-the-week-sustainable-development-database/

The Structural Imbalance of Talk-Radio

...this report will document in detail..of all of the news/talk stations in the top 10 radio markets...76 percent of the programming in these markets is conservative and 24 percent is progressive.

press release w/link to report

~Those percentages don't misrepresent the politics of the people who buy the products talk-radio's advertisers sell?

Preventing Fatalities in Building Bombings:

What Can We Learn from the OKC Bombing?

press release w/link to report

~Location, location, location.

Canada: Inappropriate & Excessive Use of Tasers

Six people died after being shot with tasers in 2005 and 2006 in Canada. All were subjected to multiple cycles of the taser...

press release w/ link to Amnesty's report

~This gets linked here because tasers are cruel and few media outlets care.

Extraordinary Hearing on Extraordinary Rendition

blog entry | Secrecy News

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2007_hr/rendition.pdf

~Mr Michael Schuer's remarks begin a page 12.

No mention of how many 'targets' have gone through the CIA's rendition program since President Clinton initiated it and President Bush "made the already successful Rendition Program even more effective."
This statement: "from its start until today, the program was focused on senior al-Qaeda leaders and not aimed at the rank-and-file members. With only limited manpower to conduct the Rendition Program, CIA wanted to inflict as much damage on al-Qaeda as possible and therefore focused on senior leaders, financiers, terrorist operators, field commanders, strategists and logisticians."-- if true, has me wondering what the CIA does with their prisoners when they've no more use for them. Images of people wasting away in medieval dungeons, or shallow graves on the edge of farmers' fields come to mind.

Isn't it strange to talk about moving prisoners thousands of miles around the world and not wonder what's being done to their bodies? I'm not talking about torture here. I don't understand why no one's curious about their daily care and feeding. No one asks: "what's a typical day like for one of these CIA prisoners? what are their dreams and aspirations like now? what do their familes think? how do the prisoners adapt? etc.

The premise is: these are bad people, therefore don't ask?
Or the premise is: this is a matter of policy, the individual is irrelevant?

World’s Largest Internet Enabled, Wireless Mesh Sensor Network for Agriculture

(Grape Networks) ... Wireless Sensor Network covers over 50 acres, and consists of more than 200 sensors, all broadcasting critical vineyard data over the Internet. The data includes the exact location of the sensor modules, temperature, humidity and light.
Critical vineyard information on Powdery Mildew and Degree Days are standard. The sensor modules are mobile and are buried next to the wine producing grape. The Vineyard Operations’ Manager can view the data on any WEB enabled cellular phone or PC, and can also set the threshold values for alerts over the Internet or via Email.

press release

Beyond Face Value:

Depictions of Slavery in Confederate Currency

Many Southern notes did not feature images of slavery; this exhibit focuses on the ones that did. This collection features notes issued and circulated in the South during the Antebellum, Civil War, and Reconstruction Eras.

http://www.cwc.lsu.edu/cwc/BeyondFaceValue/beyondfacevalue.htm

images http://www.cwc.lsu.edu/cwc/BeyondFaceValue/images/index.htm

Journal Seek & Openly Jake

Genamics JournalSeek is the largest completely categorized database of freely available journal information available on the internet. The database presently contains 92673 titles. Journal information includes the description (aims and scope), journal abbreviation, journal homepage link, subject category and ISSN. Searching this information allows the rapid identification of potential journals to publish your research in, as well as allow you to find new journals of interest to your field.
JournalSeek does not contain articles or abstracts...

http://journalseek.net/

Openly Jake jointly administered knowledge environment
"the first Open Source OpenURL Link-Server"

about Openly Jake: http://www.openly.com/jake/

http://jake.openly.com/

thanks Diederik

Landscape Architecture Image Resource

How to Search the LAIR Database http://www.lair.umd.edu/usinglair.htm

search database: http://www.lair.umd.edu/FMPro?-db=Vt.Vol.1&-lay=Test%20Layout%201&-format=search.htm&-view

~I should be familiar with more of these architects and projects then I am. (On the search page I clicked on both the designer and project links for the pull up names.)

Workplace Bullying Institute

>for example

From Rush Limbaugh on-air April 2
About the "Left's Anti-Bullying Movement": "a bunch of liberals behind this, a bunch of pantywaist, limp-wristed, linguini-spined liberals who are out there trying to work their magic and reorder the basic tenets of human nature" read the transcript of his rant

http://www.bullyinginstitute.org/index.html

http://www.bullyinginstitute.org/camplinks.html

From Conscientious: A Conversation With Misty Keasler

JC: And if you had to pick just one single photo - one of your own or someone else's - to take to a deserted island (along with your ten favourite books and CDs that one always gets asked about) which one would it be and why?

MK: I don't think you are going to like my answer. I think I would get tired of any photograph given enough time and if it were the only thing I could look at besides the desert island. But if I had to choose, I would probably take one of mine from the roof of my favorite hotel in Antigua, Guatemala. It is a night exposure for about 20 mins and the sky is dramatic and the rooftop breath taking. I just get lost in it, but mostly because I love that hotel and the way I feel when i stay there - all the things one should divorce one's self from when editing pictures. But it would be me and my desert island and I can break the rules if I want when on said island.

much more: http://www.jmcolberg.com/weblog/archives/002740.html

Misty Keasler's photographs: http://www.mistykeasler.com

TV & Jurisprudence/ TV & Criminal Investigation

Scalia and Torture

The Supreme Court Justice cites Jack Bauer and the Hollywood torture show "24" as relevant background for constitutional jurisprudence:

Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles. ... He saved hundreds of thousands of lives," Judge Scalia said. Then, recalling Season 2, where the agent's rough interrogation tactics saved California from a terrorist nuke, the Supreme Court judge etched a line in the sand.
"Are you going to convict Jack Bauer?" Judge Scalia challenged his fellow judges. "Say that criminal law is against him? 'You have the right to a jury trial?' Is any jury going to convict Jack Bauer? I don't think so.
"So the question is really whether we believe in these absolutes. And ought we believe in these absolutes."

more: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/06/scalia_and_tort.html

thanks http://jmcolberg.com/weblog/

Police Review 'Law & Order' Episode Similar to Case

State Police investigating the deaths of an Oswego (IL) mother and her three children have reviewed a recent "Law & Order" episode that featured the fatal shootings of a family.

The May 8 episode of "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" has TV cops trying to determine why a mom shot her kids to death in their home, wounded her husband, then shot herself. The NBC show takes a dramatic twist and ends with the husband being arrested for the murders of his wife and children.
Police investigating the deaths of the Vaughns have looked at a copy of the episode, law enforcement sources said... while downplaying any connection between the TV show and the Will County deaths.

story | SunTimes

~I wonder if the police found a record of the May 8 episode on the Vaughans' TIVO?
Or maybe they're grasping at straws? Or trying to help the public and themselves understand?

How quickly was he able to flee bleeding from the car? She couldn't have stepped out of the car and shot him when he was busy with the luggage rack? She couldn't be bothered to chase him down and finish him off?

Husbands and wives have been known to kill their children and themselves while letting their spouses live to "see what you made me do". And dutiful husbands facing financial or moral ruin have been reported to kill their wives and children and then themselves.
The killings last week are not quite revenge or 'saving' the family from a fate worse then death.

2 Defense Link Photos

[ - A U.S. Army soldier goes out into the daylight as he searches a house in Rashid, Iraq, on June 2, 2007...]

(~Soon he finds what he was looking for...)

[... a truck leader with Military Police Company, 2nd Maintenance Battalion, walks with an Iraqi child...]

photos from Defense Link Image Gallery

~A less sinister interpretation could be something like "look at the variety of activities a soldier can do in Iraq: from searching a stranger's home to holding hands and walking with a child to whom you're not related."

All in a day's work for the US Military in Iraq.

(Try either in the USA.)

Combat Camera Units Document Military Operations

Each U.S. military service now has "combat camera" (COMCAM) units that provide a unique visual record of military operations, according to a new manual on COMCAM tactics and procedures.
The photographic and motion imagery produced by military photographers "enhances the commander's situational awareness and establishes a historical operations record."

During recent operations, daily imagery usage included: battle briefings, targeting, operational assessment, force protection, battlespace orientation, airfield qualification, public affairs, operational awareness, information operations, psychological operations, and battle damage assessment."

blog entry w/link to pdfs \ Secrecy News

The Digital South Asia Library

American Institute of Indian Studies Photo Archive

for example:

Cave 16 - Pillar bracket, Vidyadhara couple. Ajanta, cave: 4th-7th century AD @

by way of AIIS' search page

more archives http://dsal.uchicago.edu/images/

professor helps develop techniques to reduce threat against honeybees

...scientists around the country are investigating several possible causes, including pesticides, viruses, genetically modified crops and even cell phones, Amrine said he is certain that at least 70 percent of the CCD is caused by tiny mites, roughly the size of a sesame seed, and the pathogens they carry.
(James) Amrine, an entomologist in WVU’s Davis College of Agriculture, Forestry and Consumer Sciences, and one of the nation’s foremost acarologists (mite specialist), bases that estimate on the research he has been doing on the bees since 1996.

The ongoing CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder) problem escalated in November 2006 and seems to have spread to 27 states and Brazil, Canada and many parts of Europe.

press release

~Herbal therapy.

War at the Remote

"...thanks to an utter lack of coverage by the mainstream media, what we don't know about the air war in Iraq so far outweighs what we do know that anything but the most minimal picture of the nature of destruction from the air in that country simply can't be painted," (Nick) Turse writes.
The (his) article (Did the US Lie about Cluster Bomb Use in Iraq?) raises a key question: "Does the US military keep the numbers of rockets and cannon rounds fired from its planes and helicopters secret because more Iraqi civilians have died due to their use than any other type of weaponry?"

article by Norman Solomon | TruthOut

~Obviously the kinds of missiles, bombs and munitions the US military uses on Iraqi targets must be kept secret because the insugents would develop defenses against them.

[photo via google\ not above
(more iraq cluster bomb photos]

>coincidentally International Red Cross: NATO Must Prevent Afghan Civilian Casualties

The humanitarian agency (ICRC) said that since 2006 the violence and insecurity had significantly intensified in the south and east and was spreading to the north and west, bringing a "growing number of civilian casualties".

The escalating conflict and insecurity have largely confined the ICRC to major cities, reflecting the greatest restrictions on its relief work in Afghanistan in 20 years...

story via Unknown News

Slimming photos with HP digital cameras

With the slimming feature, anyone can appear more slender—instantly.

The effect is subtle—subjects still look like themselves
Can be adjusted for a more dramatic effect
See a before and after version, then decide which to keep

more info.

~I've been thinner and better looking in my head for as long as I can remember.
To use this camera I'ld first have to see myself as I really am. And I'ld be destroying my deluded yet comforting self-image to make pictures for whom?

Blog: Mass Resistence

>for example from June 15.

Mass. Legislature kills marriage amendment. Eleven "pro-family" reps and senators switch their votes at last minute to support "gay marriage".

Russian immigrants holding signs outside the (Massachusetts) State House during Constitutional Convention demonstrations. They said to us, "You Americans don't get it. You've got to be radical if you're going to stop this."

~Believing they can stop men from having sex with each other is radical, Dude.

Maybe the Republicans can reform the blue laws in each state and legislate homosexuality out of existence.

There aren't enough people in America's jails. And the various federal, state and municipal law enforcement agencies are always looking for new criminal worlds to conquer.

Pressure Points: Intersections of Homophobia, Heterosexism, and Schooling

by SANDRA SPICKARD PRETTYMAN

...schools are often uncomfortable, if not hostile, environments for students and teachers who identify as or are perceived to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender...

However, we must also recognize the ways in which individual and institutionalized forms of homophobia and heterosexism operate to regulate and police all of our lives, not just those of sexual minorities.

This special issue of Educational Studies is devoted to examining the role of sexuality and sexual diversity in schooling, investigating how homophobia and heterosexism operate in school settings and structure the schooling experiences of all students and teachers.

Abstract: http://www.leaonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00131940701308171

link to Special Complimentary Issue of Educational Studies: A Jrnl of the American Educ. Studies Assoc. 2007, Vol. 41, No. 1,
http://www.leaonline.com/toc/es/41/1

Growing Up Sexually

Who's in a Family?

"This is the book that came home in the "Diversity Book Bag" with the Parkers' 5-year-old son in January. The Parkers were shocked and outraged."

[illus. more info. from Mass Resistence\ not above]

When Crops Talk to Farmers

...farmers just need to clip a tiny sensor to their potato or corn leaves. When the plant feels it needs some moisture, data from the leaves will be sent wirelessly over the Internet to computers linked to irrigation equipment.

...some questions remain. How many sensors will need to be installed on a single field? And how much will they cost? The answer is not clear yet. And what will be the total cost for farmers? Will it be less than the economies they’ll make on water?

press release | ZDnet

~I can see his technology adapted by nursing home operators and hospital intensive care units: to inform caregivers when patients bedding or clothes have too much 'moisture'.

How about another way for advertisers to utilize female focus groups: to objectively measure e.g. the "Q factor" of various celebrities; steamy scenes in movies or commercials; chapters in romance novels; music lyrics; perfume and shampoo bottles--any person or product?

Goodrich Imaging Sensor...to be Modified for Use in Space

-- Currently Flying on the U2 --

"...electro- optical systems that provide rapid-reaction Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance, or 'ISR', capabilities to the warfighter.

...can be used to rapidly augment and/or replenish space capabilities in times of national need. They can also provide a distributed capability, lessening the vulnerability of the U.S.'s constellation of imaging satellites. Demonstrations of anti-satellite capabilities by foreign governments only serve to underscore the importance of this type of system capability.

...long- range airborne electro-optical sensor.

press release

link to Goodrich Airborne Reconnaisance Technology http://www.goodrich.com/Feature/SingleStory/0,1285,127,00.html

on the above page click http://www.isr.goodrich.com/ for Surveillance Reconnaissance Systems

see also http://www.isr.goodrich.com/SurveillanceAndReconnaissanceSystems.shtml

~Operationally Responsive Space, or 'ORS' redundancy.

These (this?) electro-optical sensor(s) provide real-time display and are small (and light) enough to add to (hide on) any satellite?

Tee-Shirts

@

more political t-shirts | Zazzle

Dead Media Project: Working Notes:

Arranged by Category

This highly flawed index (in both concept and execution) immediately shows just how stupid it is to try to classify media in any way. Which of course makes the job even more interesting. The only definition for media I can come up with is "a method or artifact for storing or generating or transmiting human sensory stimulus" which is so broad it means nothing. Any less and some damned thing gets left out...

http://www.deadmedia.org/notes/index-cat.html

New Uncategorized Working Notes:

http://www.deadmedia.org/notes/index-new.html

~Missile mail?

Book Excerpt: Notes from Hampstead

People were trained in special schools to dwell in the cities of old. There were Venetians, Toledans, Pompeians, Parisians. They walked about in period costumes and ate and drank only what was appropriate. They lived in their little dollhouses and were watched night and day. They had been told to act as though they were not aware of being watched. In the pubs they drank with gusto in front of crowds of tourists. They were permanent employees, not allowed to take tips. They intermarried and produced children, but these were later taken from them. In the Sorbonne the students held debates in Latin; there were even goliards. The attrapes of Montmartre were very popular in Paris. In Venice the women bought theater tickets while masked, and the Biennale, as always, was just around the corner from Tintoretto. In Toledo, El Greco's house was balanced on real swords. In Pompeii those who had suffocated lay in every other house, some in the street, obscene epithets still on their lips. Everything was real, and visitors came by the millions.
---by Elias Canetti 1967

YouTube Remixer

http://www.youtube.com/ytremixer_about

Fun in the Great Outdoors

X2

~I need to think what moves me moves you.

Art: Propoganda III

Propoganda Propagating Online

The effects of local politics are global. Warfare isn't limited by national borders; climate change cannot be confined. While the blogosphere has provided the disenfranchised with a platform for discussion and debate, one of the most powerful tools of grassroots communication has remained essentially provincial: Printed on paper and affixed to walls with wheat paste, the propaganda poster is a medium made to stay in place. Propaganda III effectively questions this role by proposing a hybrid future for poster art that relies on the global reach of photo-sharing website Flickr and the universal availability of inkjet printers. Already nearly two hundred posters from around the world have been submitted to the Propaganda III Flickr gallery--administered by San Francisco gallery START SOMA--with entries from Iran, Croatia, and China joining more conventional fare from England and the United States. Much of it, such as Shepard Faireys stylish Make Art Not War, is more dec! orative than polemical, though Francesco Sommacal's rendition of the World Trade Center, with the Nike swoosh as an airplane and the slogan "Just Do It" as a caption, is chillingly unequivocal. START SOMA will tour prints of all submissions, uncensored, in galleries around the world starting on July 4th, a proof-of-concept in inkjet propaganda. More provocatively, the ongoing online exhibition suggests the potential for propaganda to evolve, open-source, as it spreads: As digital files circulate freely on the web, global messages can be remixed on any PC to meet local needs. - Jonathon Keats | Rhizome

http://www.startsoma.com/propagandaIII.html

3 Exposed to Plutonium at Nevada Site

Thursday, June 7, 2007

LAS VEGAS— Authorities are investigating how three workers were exposed to radioactive plutonium during environmental restoration work at the Nevada Test Site, the National Nuclear Security Administration said.

Two female workers for the test site's main contractor, National Securities Technologies, received the highest of what NNSA spokesman Kevin Rohrer characterized as "minor radiation exposure" on April 30.

A man received less exposure, Rohrer said. The three were among eight workers in the area, including a health physicist and technicians. All were wearing protective gear, including respirators.

"The exposures are relatively low, but they're high enough that it concerns us," he said.

The workers remained on the job, but the women were not allowed into radiation areas, Rohrer said. For privacy reasons, the names of the eight workers were not released.

A spokeswoman for the contractor, Gillian Silver, said the company was conducting an internal investigation and that the company doesn't have any reason "to believe there were any security or safety considerations here."

url

~Note the date of the 'exposure' and the date of the AP story. In stories about plutonium workers being poisoned this is the second time this year I've noticed a several weeks delay before a newswire gets the news. I'm sure there are very good, perhaps classified reasons, why the nuclear industry doesn't rush to report these incidents. I don't know what they might be.
If a plutonium worker died within hours of exposure, I'm guessing that news would be reported immediately.
I'm not as certain that a worker's death with one or two weeks of being poisoned would be more news-worthy then stories like the above of workers put at risk or sickened on the job.

The nuclear industry is simply being thorough, acting in the best interest of its employees and the citizens of America?

Most on-the-job injuries never make news. Plutonium is unique: how many industrial materials are there in which mere exposure requires a mandatory investigation and report? I don't have a clue. (Poor plutonium, everybody's picking on it?)

Report Gives Details On CIA's Secret Prisons In Europe

>"cosmic top secret"

The CIA exploited NATO military agreements to help it run secret prisons in Poland and Romania where alleged terrorists were held in solitary confinement for months, shackled and subjected to other mental and physical torture, according to a [72 page] European investigative report... [completed for the Council of Europe, the continent's human rights agency.]

The CIA's clandestine operations in Europe - including its transfers and secret detentions of HVDs [high-value detainees] - were sustained and kept secret only through their operational dependence on alliances and partnerships in what is more traditionally the military sphere," said the report.

The secret "high-value" prisoner program was given the NATO classification of "Cosmic Top Secret," according to the report.

...detainees were often kept naked in their cells for several weeks and endured up to four consecutive months of "solitary confinement and extreme sensory deprivation in cramped cells, shackled and handcuffed at all times." Temperatures in the cells were often kept at extreme levels: "sometimes so hot one would gasp for breath, sometimes freezing cold."

The Council of Europe is Europe's official human rights watchdog. It has limited power to enforce human rights regulations.

story w/link to WashPost | FreeInternet

also What Happened in the 'Black Sites'

and

The Council of Europe Report on CIA Secret Prisons:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/cia-secret-prisons/?resultpage=1&

thanks Conscientious

[photo via google "world will little note nor long remember"\ not from above links]

News of the Weird

from June 10, 2007

Britain's Ann Summers sex-product company announced it would stop selling its remote-controlled Love Bug 2 personal vibrator in Cyprus after Cypriot military officials complained that the device's signals were interfering with army radio transmissions. [Reuters, 4-23-07] [The Guardian (London), 5-6-07]

Just Shoot Me: Men continue to consider that having themselves shot (non-fatally, of course) might provide them sympathy and a valid excuse to avoid some unpleasant task. In February, John Amos wanted pal Emanuel Houston to shoot him, to get his upcoming rape trial in Martins Ferry, W.Va., postponed, but Houston refused, and the two then struggled over the gun until Amos forced Houston's hand (and the gun) against Amos's stomach and pressed on Houston's finger. And in May, in Baltimore, Md., police said two college students had a third shoot them so they could avoid an onerous fraternity hazing ritual but then later confessed that they are National Guardsmen and had themselves shot to avoid deployment to Iraq. (A National Guard spokesman said there is actually no deployment scheduled for their unit.) [The Intelligencer (Wheeling, W.Va.), 3-1-07] [Baltimore Sun, 5-23-07]

* "Zoo," a movie about men in quasi-romantic relationships with animals (based on the notorious farm near Enumclaw, Wash., that was the site of the 2005 death (from receptive sex) of a horse lover, was released in April, and is generally not judgmental toward the human characters, according to a May review in Slate.com. "[Zoophilia]'s just like if you love your wife," said one of the men, and "You're connecting with another intelligent being," said another. The characters throw parties that resemble mundane, all-male, suburban nights out. "These were people I could trust," said one. "I'd invite them to my home. [I] did . . . Thanksgiving, I did Christmas dinners." However, noted the reviewer, the bonhomie was interrupted when one suggested, "Hey, let's go out to the barn and pester the animals." Slate.com, 5-4-07: http://politics.slate.msn.com/id/2165578/

Visit Chuck Shepherd daily at http://NewsoftheWeird.blogspot.com (or www.NewsoftheWeird.com /

Bio-electromagnetic Weapons: The ultimate weapon

...the Israelis are deploying a device called “The Scream”, which sends out bursts of audible, but not loud sound at intervals of about 10 seconds. A photographer at the scene of a demonstration said that he continued to hear the sound ringing in his head even after he covered his ears. This suggests to me that the active agent is electromagnetic rather than acoustic. In other words, the Israelis have come up with a device that is far cleverer than our “active denial technology”. It not only deters rioters, but also issues an audible warning that it has been turned on, which the US device does not, leaving it entirely to the enlisted men operating it to determine how much burning pain their adversaries receive. The margin for error with the US device is unconscionable. It may as well be called a lethal weapon because in practice it very frequently will be.

article http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=5797 by Harlan Girard

~From 2005.

EU defence agency wants open skies for flying robots

The idea seems to be that if the EU can move swiftly to establish a regulatory environment which is friendly to UAV operations, this will establish a big European UAV market and thus a big domestic UAV industry. The USA, where airborne robots are being held back somewhat by FAA restrictions on where they can fly, might then be left far behind.

Even if the EDA can establish a European civil UAV market, it's never going to match the size of the American military one. The EDA is budgeting a paltry €500,000 for a "roadmap" toward its robot-friendly skies...

Meanwhile, the Pentagon is already throwing around tens of millions for actual working kill-bots such as the Reaper and Fire Scout. Projects are underway to develop full-size robot combat jets which can operate autonomously, even landing on aircraft carriers without pilot input.
And some European armed forces have already been seduced into buying from non-European makers. The RAF intends to deploy Reapers later this year, and is using an Israeli design as the basis of its upcoming Watchkeeper programme

press release

Humanoid Toddler Reacts To Touch, Sound

The Child-Robot with Biomimetic Body, or CB2, looks at Shuhei Ikemoto, an Osaka University student, when its hand is clasped by him during a demonstration of the toddler robot at a lab of the university in Osaka, western Japan.

press release

~"Humanoid toddler" made me laugh. It reminded me of my sister's kid.

Also I've been thinking about someday adopting a robot and humanoids might prove easier to adopt, have more legal status, then the less anthropomorphic models with whom I first pictured making a family.

People from populations with low birth rates are very interested in humanoids?

Computer failure causes delays, canceled flights

A cascading computer failure in the nation's air-traffic control system caused severe flight delays and some cancellations along the East Coast Friday (June 8)

Airlines experienced thousands of delays, some lasting several hours, in what was shaping up to be one of the country's worst days this year for air travel.

story

~There's the weather that effects human activity and there're 'computer failures' like the above that in some ways mimic the weather.
I wonder when news-networks will begin, like weather reports, routinely listing (and predicting?) computer failures.

Amputee soldiers return to duty

Spc. Frank Fields, right, and Staff Sgt. Brad Alexander go through rehab at the new Center for the Intrepid, a $50 million high-tech rehabilitation center designed to serve the growing number of soldiers who return from war as amputees or with severe burns, at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Wednesday, March 1, 2007. Both were injured while serving in Iraq. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
[Photo & Caption via Yahoo News-Photo]

(Black Knight) What! Just a flesh wound.

[film still via google/ caption Monty Python & the Holy Grail Script]

~Yes I'm aware that most jobs in the military no longer require the strength and physical endurance we're taught by movies and tv as essential for a soldier. That in the heat of battle more often then not soldiers are sitting down minding the machines of war and that nowadays the US Army doesn't march into battle, it rides. So there're no good reasons to keep amputees (or the elderly or individuals with special health concerns) out of the military.

I forget that the US military is more than a job, more then a duty, it's a lifestyle.

Are there other, perhaps not as large, high-tech rehab centers all around America for amputee-soldiers who have no intention of returning to duty?

The AfterEllen.com Hot 100 List

>for example

15. Keira Knightley

[photo via google/ not AE.com]

Let's face it: Maxim doesn't cater to lesbians. In fact, you could say it flies in the face of all that we hold dear, especially when it declares Lindsay Lohan the hottest of them all, as it did when it published The Maxim Hot 100 List last month. So we asked you, our readers, to create your own list of hotties, and you came out in droves to nominate the women you think deserve to be on the AfterEllen.com Hot 100 List.

http://www.afterellen.com/people/2007/6/hotlist?page=0%2C0

~I wonder how a list of 'hot women' created by gay men would differ from both Maxims & the above?
A list of 'hot women' created by hetero-women?

How about showing the photos from the Maxim and AfterEllen lists to a dozen or so New Guinea-Papuan men and women and have them rank their 'hotties'.

Nick Ut, Exactly 35 Years Later

When word broke a few minutes ago that Paris Hilton was headed back to jail, we were stunned. Not because Paris was back in custody, but because the Associated Press photo of her crying in the back of a police cruiser was taken by the one and only Nick Ut. Nick, of course, was the photographer who shot young Kim Phuc, the girl wounded during a napalm attack near the village of Trang Bang, thus creating one of the iconic images of the Vietnam War.

more blog entry

>also (by way of) http://www.jmcolberg.com/weblog/archives/002731.html

Lifestyles: Free Paris!

story

~Don't you wish you could've heard what Paris Hilton's pr people said to her as she went back to jail? How it's a good thing, how she'll get another book out of it, another cd? (She can do blues covers).
Maybe a made-for-tv movie?

I believe her mother serves as chief translator for the agency in charge of the "Paris Hilton" brand.

The Hilton's have the kind of wealth that allows them to make people disappear. They can have people killed. (As long as they don't over do it.) They don't worry about being assassinated or kidnapped because criminals know that there's no place in the world they can go where they won't be hunted down and killed along with their wives and kids.
That she can be treated so like a common criminal is bizarro world sweet.

She's addicted to various legal and illegal drugs? She's going cold turkey?

I'm guessing within a week the proper paperwork wil be properly filed and she'll be under 4000 sq.ft house arrest with access to her phone and friends once again. That or the judge in charge will be over-ruled by a higher court.

You think the judge will be retiring soon? Is dying from cancer?

Maybe Ms. Hilton will turn her life around and become an advocate for prison reform.
I can picture her as a Mother Teresa for California's jails.

Prison food would make her fat: those simple carbohydrates.

I think I could like a fat, pimply, unfashionable Paris Hilton.

Maybe she'll buy an island and disappear.
Or we can wait ten years and have another 'Anna Nicole Smith'-type tragedy?

Book Review: The atomic bazaar:

The Rise of the Nuclear Poor

By William Langewiesche

"... a primer in Armageddon Studies."

review by Rod Liddle

Human rights groups say there are over 39 'ghost detainees'

WASHINGTON - At least 39 people from a half-dozen countries have been held in secret U.S. detention centers worldwide for three or more years, and their fates remain unknown, six human-rights groups say in a report to be released Thursday.

In five instances, the report says, U.S. authorities detained the wives or young children of suspects held in secret prisons.

...last September...Bush announced that 14 "high value detainees," including the alleged architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, had been transferred to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and said "there are now no terrorists in the CIA (detention) program."

story | McClatchy

>see also The Disappeared

from Conscientious

[photo not with above links]

Hollywood Producer Indicted for Obscenity

The 10-count indictment returned May 17 in Tampa and unsealed late last week charges Paul F. Little, a/k/a Max Hardcore, 50, of Altadena, Calif., and MaxWorld Entertainment Inc., with five counts of transporting obscene matter by use of an interactive computer service and five counts of mailing obscene matter.

Little is a nationally-known director, producer and star of films featuring sexual acts, vomiting, and severe violence towards the female performers participating in the acts.

The government is seeking forfeiture of the obscene films charged in the indictment, all gross profits from the distribution of the films, and all property used to facilitate the charged obscenity crimes, including Little’s residence in Altadena, Calif.*, and the Internet domain names maxhardcore.com, pissedonpornstars.com, and catalinaxxx.com.

story

~*I never understood why public officials (e.g. police officers, mayors, Congressmen et.al.) convicted of various crimes while on the taxpayers payroll aren't required to forfeit their homes and property.

New Report Grades States on Eminent Domain Reform

The Castle Coalition examined and graded eminent domain laws for each of the 50 states over the past two years—since the Kelo decision allowing eminent domain for private gain.

story

50 State Report Card
http://www.castlecoalition.org/publications/report_card/

Teacher's Porn Conviction Overturned

Pop-up spyware overwhelmed classroom computer, forensic experts say

Julie Amero...faced up to 40 years in prison after being convicted of exposing seventh-grade students to pornographic images on their classroom computer.

...granted a new trial.

Superior Court Judge Hillary Strackbein granted Amero’s motion for a retrial Wednesday after determining that a Norwich police detective who was called as an expert prosecution witness had given “erroneous” testimony about the computer.

...evidence was barred at trial after the prosecution objected.

[(Herb Horner) a defense witness whose company examined a copy of the computer’s hard drive] said Wednesday that Amero would not have been convicted if he had been allowed to present all of his evidence.

story | MSNBC

~Is there any chance that the barred defense expert's testimony was a refutation of the police detective's erroneous testimony? Too much of a coincidence? (Too snarky?)

>Spitting Image search results for teacher porn

Art in Advanced Capitalism

This week, the Italian city of Venice will host more than just the famous Biennale and its roster of established artists. The Laboratorio Occupato Morion, an independent cultural space located in the historical area of Venice, presents Challengers, an event occurring from June 7-9, that includes several projects, from screenings to lectures and conferences. Concurrent radio broadcasts on the organization's Sherwood Radio station will link the work on view with the events unfolding simultaneously at the G8 summit, in Germany. This effort to keep the art world VIP's visiting Venice aware of the events in Rostock conveys the organizers' intent to highlight politically-engaged work. The best example is the video program 'art-e-conomy,' selected by curator Marko Stamenkovic, that brings together works by six artists and artist collectives that examine 'labor' as an ideology and a practice in advanced capitalism. Topics such as work conditions, unemployment, corporate ethics,! and social security figure in the featured pieces. For example, Carlos Motta's 'SEPTEMBER 22' documents an illegal street vendor evacuation action by Sao Paulo police, creating a powerful metaphor of migrant policies worldwide. Also notable is Julia Klaring & Nils Olger's '[ ]' that reveals the routine of a company's female worker as well as her thoughts about it, constituting a poetic reflection on office life. By critically exploring the economic models that shape contemporary society, these artists present ways of structuring human existence in new, alternative systems, placing utopia at the front of their artistic output. - Miguel Amado | Rhizome

http://challengersmorion.wordpress.com/art-e-conomy-selected-video-program/

Muslim-Americans: What's Important

(i.e. Support of Suicide Bombings)

...26% of young Muslim Americans saying that suicide bombings are sometimes justifiable is certainly something to which we should pay attention. But some context, please. Look at the results when Pew has asked the same question among Muslims in a number of other countries:

American Muslims are by far the least supportive of suicide bombing out of any group of Muslims in any country surveyed (except Germany which was similar)...

blog entry | Abu Aardvark

~How do I hate thee: let me count the ways.

I'm struck by the realization that pollsters wouldn't ask non-Muslim Americans "Can suicide bombings of civilian targets to defend America be justified?" Muslims are just nuts; the clash of civilizations and all that medieval tribalism. We could never imagine suicide bombing of civilians in defense of American freedom. It's barbaric.

Is there something about polls or the media that permits us to view horrendous activities as more rhetorical than real?

Maybe America's fundamentalist Christians would have somewhat similar opinions about dying while killing for their values?

Every group on earth believes they are victims--some more than others-- except for America's military, political and corporate leaders?

An equivalent question for Americans might be "Can military bombing of civilian targets to defend America be justified"?

Reenactment Culture

Swedish town searches for Ingrid Bergman look-alike for wedding reenactment AP Published: November 23, 2006

A small Swedish town is searching for a bride-to-be who is an Ingrid Bergman look-alike to take part in a reenactment of the film star's first wedding in 1937.

The search has been initiated by the folklore society in Stode, 378 kilometers (235 miles) north of Stockholm, to mark the 70-year anniversary of Bergman's wedding to her first husband Petter Aron Lindstrom in the town church.
"We're looking for a Swedish look-alike and it's going to be a real wedding — there won't be any cheating — and we'll pay for the wedding dress and dinner," said Gertrud Svensson, a deputy member of the society.
The Bergman-style wedding is planned for the summer of 2007 and, aside from featuring a look-alike bride and wedding dress, guests will be invited to dine on the original wedding porcelain at the wedding party. The groom does not necessarily have to resemble Lindstrom, who came from Stode.

story | IHT

>also Art Exhibit: History Will Repeat Itself. Strategies of re-enactment in contemporary (media) art and performance

In contemporary (media) art there has been an almost ‘uncanny’ longing for the performative repetition or re-creation of historical situations and events. The exhibition History Will Repeat Itself focuses on current strategies of re-enactment in contemporary (media) art and performance, and presents the positions and strategies of 30 international artists.

In general, a so-called re-enactment is a historically correct recreation of socially relevant events, such as important battles or other historical events. In a re-enactment, the audience that normally remain passive or at a certain distance of the documented event become immediate witnesses of a (repeated historical) event, which unfolds in front of their eyes, or they become participants in an action, in which they actively participate.

In contemporary art there has been an increasing number of artistic re-enactments – the performative repetition or re-creation of historical situations and events. For example, in his work "The Battle of Orgreave" (2001) the British artist Jeremy Deller had a violent clash between miners and police from the year 1984 re-enacted by ex-miners, ex-police and other re-enactors.

Unlike popular historical re-enactments, like e.g. the re-enactment of historical battles, artistic re-enactments are not performative re-stagings of historic situations and events that occurred a long time ago; rather, events (often traumatic ones) are re-enacted that are viewed as very important for the present. Artistic re-enactments are not simply affirming what has happened in the past, but rather they are questioning the present via repeating or re-enacting historical events that have left their traces in the collective memory. Re-enactments are artistic interrogations of media images that try to scrutinise the reality of the images, while at the same time pointing towards the fact that collective memory is essentially mediated memory.

In Dortmund, the exhibition will take place from June 9 - September 23, 2007 - in parallel to Documenta 12 (Kassel) and skulptur.projekte muenster -

press release w/list of artists | HMKV

Abstract: Armed Citizens and the Stories They Tell

The National Rifle Association's Achievement of Terror and Masculinity by Kevin Lewis O'Neill; Stanford University

"Since 1926, the National Rifle Association's (NRA) flagship publication has without pause featured "The Armed Citizen," a column that reports instances in which law-abiding citizens have successfully defended their property, person, and/or family with firearms. These reports are brief (100 to 200 words) and have remained remarkably untouched over the past 80 years with regard to style, diction, and narrative structure. Their rhetorical effect, however, has not. In 1977, the year the NRA became a social movement, these narratives began to contribute to the production of a terror-filled, deeply masculine (and surprisingly biblical) NRA discourse that led (and continues to lead) to the mobilization of its members to defend the right to keep and bear arms in the face of extraordinary public opposition: to perpetuate what has come to be known as the "gun-control paradox."

Key Words: National Rifle Association • terror • narrative • rhetoric • American masculinities • David and Goliath • social movements • discourse

http://jmm.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/9/4/457

>most recent "Armed Citizens" http://www.nrapublications.org/armed%20citizen/Index.asp

also from http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=armedcitizen

>Search the Armed Citizen Archives
During the decades the American Rifleman has published “The Armed Citizen” column, thousands of incidents of law-abiding Americans using firearms to halt or prevent crime have appeared in the magazine. Editorial space allowing, the total could have been far greater of course, as award-winning survey research shows that each year in the U.S. gun owners use firearms for protection as frequently as 2.5 million times.

This archive contains “Armed Citizen” entries from the present back to 1958. The database is searchable by key word and state and results are displayed in chronological order according to the month of publication in the American Rifleman.

http://www.nraila.org/ArmedCitizen/Default.aspx

~For example searching "Armed Citizen" leaving keyword blank with state: IL shows 215 results.

Document Suggests a Larger (Secret) Intelligence Budget

Classified budget numbers concealed in an unclassified PowerPoint document suggest that total U.S. intelligence spending is significantly larger than generally assumed, perhaps around $60 billion annually.
The briefing document (ppt), prepared by Terri Everett of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), was first obtained by Tim Shorrock of Salon, who wrote a probing account of the growing prominence of contractors in U.S. intelligence agencies, who now consume 70% of the total intelligence community budget. See "The corporate takeover of U.S. intelligence," Salon, June 1, 2007.

[excerpt from Shorrock's Salon expose: ...many tasks and services once reserved exclusively for government employees are being handled by civilians. For example, private contractors analyze much of the intelligence collected by satellites and low-flying unmanned aerial vehicles, and they write reports that are passed up to the line to high-ranking government officials. They supply and maintain software programs that can manipulate and depict data used to track terrorist suspects, both at home and abroad, and determine what targets to hit in hot spots in Iraq and Afghanistan. Such data is also at the heart of the National Security Agency's massive eavesdropping programs and may be one reason the DNI is pushing Congress to grant immunity to corporations that may have cooperated with the NSA over the past five years.]

The data appear to indicate that $42 billion was awarded to contractors in FY 2005. If so, and if that represented 70% of the total budget, as stated in the preceding Power Point slide, it would follow that the total is $60 billion, rather than the $45 or $48 billion usually cited.

complete blog entry w/links | Secrecy News

[illus. via google/ not above]

Sensor Continuously Monitors Glucose in Diabetics

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved a disposable sensor placed just below abdominal skin that monitors diabetics' glucose levels every five minutes for up to seven days.

Placement of the sensor, which must be replaced weekly, causes minimal discomfort and usually can be done by the patient, the agency said. An optional alarm will warn patients if glucose levels get too high or low.
The STS-7 device is produced by DexCom, Inc.,

press release | Forbes

>related DexCom STS Starter Kit

~My wife and I would like to see a 'ovulation' sensor that pops-up from her belly or sounds an alarm when she's most able to conceive.

Researchers To Fly Environmental Sensor In Major DOE Climate Study

CU-Boulder researchers plan to fly their Polarimetric Scanning Radiometer aboard a NASA P-3 aircraft at 26,000 feet to map the soil moisture and observe its effect on the formation of clouds and rainfall. Plans call for the P-3 to make seven flights between June 9 and June 30...
The Center for Environmental Technology... has developed a cadre of advanced environmental sensing equipment for use on ships, manned and unmanned aircraft, spacecraft and ground-based platforms in extreme environments such as the Arctic.

[University of Colorado at Boulder Professor Al Gasiewski checks the installation of an advanced microwave imaging radiometer in the NASA P-3 aircraft during a recent scientific flight...]

The Polarimetric Scanning Radiometer, which has seen more than 800 hours of flying time in the last decade on various types of aircraft, uses extremely sensitive microwave receivers to produce high-resolution images of the earth's oceans, land, ice, clouds, snowpack and precipitation. The images are used to develop better weather and climate models, which lead to improved forecasting abilities.
In the current DOE study, the Polarimetric Scanning Radiometer will be flown out of Oklahoma City over a large swath of central Oklahoma, about 17,000 square miles in size.
"We want to understand the extent to which soil moisture, through evaporation and transpiration by plants, influences the amount and location of precipitation," Gasiewski said. "The timing of the experiment will allow us to observe soil moisture patterns both before and after the annual winter wheat harvest so that the variation in the amount of vegetation can be factored into the results."
The soil moisture maps also will provide validation data for the NASA Aqua satellite, which will pass over the Cloud and Land Surface Interaction Campaign survey area three times during the mission.

press release | Colorado.edu

Star-Spangled Stars

Banners, Damsels, and Mores

@

"This annotated photo exhibition gives you a revealing walk-thru of cultures thru how they regard their flags as exhibited as everyday artifacts, in particular as a piece of swim-wear, and in particular the Anglo-Saxons. (Note to American or otherwise conservative readers: This site contains many photos of human body, including naked vulva and penis.)"

http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/lanci/lanci.html

~I prefer my women wear bug repellent or nothing at all.

GOP Presidential Candidates Poll Illus.

[illus. from In Search of the Old Magic | Economist]

~When channel surfing, I'm tired of seeing the candidates. I'm sick of their podiums, suits, poses, mouths-moving, and my certainty they're saying nothing worthwhile hearing.
They can't cheer me like Boston Legal or entertain me like House. Why are they cluttering up the tv channels?

For me political candidates become less and less appealing (less endowed with leadership qualities, etc.) the more I see of them. Perhaps I can't help thinking that most everything (paris hilton jail!) foisted on us via the media giants is crap.

Note the graph above may illustrate that I'm not the only consumer who thinks less is more when it comes to promoting candidates and elections more than a year away.

Mitt Romney is the only GOP candidate whose poll numbers haven't fallen (or stayed the same) during the past four months. According to this graph his have steadily climbed from 7% to 10%. Woo! Woo!

Google News Search:

for articles published between 3 Jun and 4 Jun;
from news sources located only in the USA

more than 5,000 items with all of the words
paris hilton jail

compared to some 3,700 stories with all of the words
bush g-8 summit

>while a similar search from news sources located only in the UK resulted in

some 2000 stories with all the words paris hilton jail

and around 3,400 news items with all the words bush g-8 summit

~Who knew the Brits had so many newspapers? Who knew the Brits gave a shit about Paris Hilton?
Who thinks Bush will bring anything newsworthy to the G-8 Summit? (He's on a shorter lease then Paris Hilton in jail.)

CyberCrimesUs

!!!!! Note !!!!! Our organization is committed to removing any and all websites and or illicit, illegal, offensive content contained on and or within the sites listed on this page, please be aware we log every ip address that visits any and all pages on our site, so to those out there that are hoping to get a link to a site that contains and or may contain content and or information on how to obtain content of an illegal nature, be sure to note we have you logged in our database and if we or the U.S. dep of justice happens to file criminal charges based upon the content or information contained on any site we are currently or have investigated, listed...

investigations: http://cybercrimes.us/Investigations.html

DHS Calls in Sci-Fi Writers as Consultants

The feds at the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have this week called ini some self-described "deviant" consultants to aid them in the battle against terrorists, illegal immigrants, smugglers et al.
The deviants in question are a group of science fiction writers namely Jerry Pournelle, Arlan Andrews, Greg Bear, Larry Niven, Yoji Kondo and Sage Walker.

The writers are members of Sigma, a "think tank of patriotic science fiction writers" founded to advise government officials by Arlan Andrews when he worked in the White House Science Office in the early 1990s.

"If you don't read science fiction, you're not qualified to talk about the future," he (A.A.) told the St Louis Post-Dispatch.

press release

by way of Daily Weird

News of the Weird

■ In March, the Los Angeles City Council agreed to pay wrongly accused Juan Catalan $320,000 to settle his lawsuit over having been held in jail for five months for a 2003 murder he could not have committed. Catalan maintained all along that he had been at a Dodgers baseball game at the time of the crime, with his six-year-old daughter, but police distrusted the alibi. However, Catalan’s lawyer subsequently learned that the HBO TV show Curb Your Enthusiasm had been filming at Dodger Stadium that day for an episode and, poring over time-stamped outtakes of crowd shots, finally found a scene with Catalan and his daughter in the stands.

■ “Hey! Pick Up That Wrapper!”: Great Britain is now famously saturated with surveillance cameras monitoring public spaces (4.2 million of them), creating alarming privacy concerns. On top of that, in April, after a pilot project in Middlesbrough, the government announced it will attach loudspeakers to the cameras in 20 districts so that officials who monitor the video can actually scold citizens who are spotted engaging in “antisocial” behavior.

other NOTW http://www.newsoftheweird.com/archive/index.html

Another Chernobyl Could Erupt Soon

Yoichi Shimatsu a former editor of Japan Times who now runs an independent documentary-making agency, is asking all SAARC countries along with China and Unesco to mobilise search and recovery operations on the slopes of Mt Everest and another Himalayan range, the Nanda Devi, to locate two radiation detectors planted there by Western governments to spy on China's nuclear programme.

The Ganges and the Brahmaputra are under threat from these devices, says Shimatsu...

The first incident goes back to the 1960s after China conducted its first nuclear test in 1964...New Delhi and America's CIA formed an alliance to plant a nuclear-powered sensing device on the Nanda Devi to intercept messages from China and spy on its missile launches.

CIA operators and accomplished mountaineers from the Indo-Tibet Border Police were entrusted with the mission, which however ended in a fiasco with the detector getting lost in the mountain.

...the Indian government says there is little danger of the plutonium breaking out of its protective sheath.

After the G-7 Summit in London in 1991, the group decided to plant a "weather robot" on the 8,848-metre peak to record weather changes.
In 1993, climbers from the Tokai Mountaineering Club in central Japan put the robot on the peak, without being told what it contained. Later, when the team went down and tried to radio contact the robot, there was no sign, making them realise it was lost. Shimatsu claims the robot actually contained a radiation detector to spy on Asian nuclear sites and was powered by plutonium.

complete story http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2064056.cms

~Dumb headline/compelling story. One might ask, if one knew who to ask, how many such plutonium-powered spy devices has the CIA dumped in pristine wilderness areas around the world?

Symbolic Breastfeeding Would Allow Muslim Men & Women to Be Alone Together

Cairo's al-Azhar Islamic University...suspended a lecturer who suggested that men and women work colleagues could use symbolic breastfeeding to get around a religious ban on being alone together.
The lecturer, Ezzat Atiya, had drawn on Islamic traditions which forbid sexual relations between a man and a woman who has breastfed him to suggest that symbolic breastfeeding could be a way around strict segregation of males and females.

story | Reuters

>related Wiki: Erotic Lactation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erotic_Lactation

via News of the Weird

Private security guards: homeland security weak link

The security guard industry found itself involuntarily transformed after September 2001 from an army of "rent-a-cops" to protectors of the homeland. Yet many security officers are paid little more than restaurant cooks or janitors.
And the industry is governed by a maze of conflicting state rules...

[Some states require FBI fingerprint checks for every guard job applicant. Others let the industry police itself.]

"A security officer is ... not trained to be a G.I. Joe," said Paul Maniscalco, a senior research scientist at George Washington University.

story | SunHerald

National Nuclear Security Administration boosts nuke sensor performance

...the new sensors "can be operated at room temperature... By contrast, "current detectors with similar performance must operate at very cold temperatures using liquid nitrogen, which is expensive and difficult to use in the field...
The new sensors can also more accurately detect the radiation emitted by sources, such as dirty bombs and nuclear materials. ... (They) are also able to differentiate radiological and nuclear threats from a variety of harmless materials that emit radiation, the NNSA said.
...the improved devices will be able to detect more minute quantities of radiation, detect radioactive materials more quickly or from greater distances, better identify the source of the radiation, and distinguish illicit sources of concern from common, naturally occurring radioactive materials," said Brookhaven physicist Aleksey Bolotnikov, one of the inventors.

press release | UPI

~So what's now stopping terrorists from using dirty bombs anywhere in the world they choose? Certainly not the nuke sensors presently deployed. Perhaps terrorists are not as motivated as Hollywood and our politicians would have us believe? One can hope our leaders are lying to us about the threat from dirty bombs too?

[dirty bomb hood from 10 Dec. 2006/ not UPI]