I've been so damn busy these days, writing anything interesting for good ol Hongpong.com has been pretty much set aside.

It's a really weird political season, hell, around here it's been a weird weather season. There was freezing rain all over my car on Friday night. It's already the end of April. It's probably a good thing that I haven't been puttering around blogging and obsessing over what's on the Internet. That shit gets tiresome!

Can't Mess With The Atmos: I got the new Atmosphere album, "When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That S*** Gold", and it's damn good. Slug dropped damn near all the bombast, now he's just trying to tell us kids to pay the bills and get it together... Be sure to check out their awesome "Paint it Gold" webcasts - they have been really excellent.

Visit the "not Google Killer Google Killer": Twine.com: Quite a while ago I mentioned the interesting Twine.com project, which lets you add all your own bookmarks/notes/videos/etc into a big online repository, kind of like Del.icio.us plus Facebook.
Basically you can cluster your areas of interest by setting up "Twines" of semantically tagged content. Most interestingly, you can upload huge chunks of text and PDFs, and it will automatically scan through and pull out the names and organizations involved.
Finally I got the 'beta invite' to join Twine, and of course I dumped in as much hard Iran-Contra conspiracy evidence text I had laying around. Add a few bookmarks, and Twine went crazy all over the stuff, indexing all the CIA drug dealers, locales and front companies of interest. Verdict: Fantastic conspiracy data mining!
Look at all the Conspiracy Entity Names it automatically spit out (in orange at right) when I put in the famed CIA Limited Hangout Frederick Hitz report on "Allegations of connections between CIA and Contras in cocaine trafficking to the United States." Contrary to popular belief, you can still read this report on the CIA's website (with some alterations).
If anyone else would like an invitation to try Twine, plz send me an email @ hongpong AT hongpong.com ! Use data mining to exp0se the stuff! Oh noooes!!

All right here is a new one. WikiLeaks.org got set up a while ago to offer a WikiPedia-style spot for edgy secret documents to get dumped. And they are getting some press. Now, a Situation has arisen, knocking the main server offline as their CA-based domain registrar folds under legal pressure. Because WikiLeaks was leaking.... suspicious bits about the Cayman Islands fronts of some bank or something. Apparently the UK server, among others, are still fine. Here is the list of mirrors.

Here is a list of Wikileaks Cover Name URL links which worked ok for us in the last few hours:

http://wikileaks.la/
https://secure.wikileaks.la/

http://home.e.co.za/
https://secure.home.e.co.za/

http://joburg.e.co.za/
https://secure.joburg.e.co.za/

http://new.alain.co.za/
https://secure.new.alain.co.za/

http://wikileaks.be/
https://secure.wikileaks.be/

http://stockholm.divx.se/
https://secure.stockholm.divx.se/

http://jwdc.org/
https://secure.jwdc.org/

http://ljsf.org/
https://secure.ljsf.org/

http://freedomsbell.org/
https://secure.freedomsbell.org/

http://freedomspen.org/
https://secure.freedomspen.org/

http://libertypen.org/
https://secure.libertypen.org/

http://sunshinepress.org/
https://secure.sunshinepress.org/

http://new.1.vg/
https://secure.new.1.vg/

http://zurich.base-v.ch/
https://secure.zurich.base-v.ch/

http://bratislava.iypt.sk/
https://secure.bratislava.iypt.sk/

http://new.iypt.sk/
https://secure.new.iypt.sk/

http://wikileaks.org.uk/
https://secure.wikileaks.org.uk/

http://new.ilex.cl/
https://secure.new.ilex.cl/

http://wikileaks.tl/
https://secure.wikileaks.tl/

http://freedomsbell.com/
https://secure.freedomsbell.com/

http://wikileaks.in/
https://secure.wikileaks.in/

http://bucharest.roxi.ro/
https://secure.bucharest.roxi.ro/

http://wikileaks.es/
https://secure.wikileaks.es/

http://wikileaks.ws/
https://secure.wikileaks.ws/

http://riga.ax.lt/
https://secure.riga.ax.lt/

http://special.k.vu/
https://secure.special.k.vu/

http://wikileaks.cx/
https://secure.wikileaks.cx/

http://new.it.cx/
https://secure.new.it.cx/

Some of the Cover Names presumably just re-direct traffic to the now missing www.wikileaks.org and so are effectively not working either i.e.

http://wikileaks.org.au/
https://secure.wikileaks.org.au/

http://wikileaks.de/
https://secure.wikileaks.de/

http://wikileaks.org.nz/
https://secure.wikileaks.org.nz/

Some are more peculiar in that unencrypted URLs either time out or are not working,

However, the corresponding SSL URLs work ok e.g.:

https://secure.smoke.ganja.nl/
https://secure.moskva.orts.ru/

There are some caveats about the secure proxy certificates and whatnot - I.E. what are these 'moskva orts' Russians really up to? [Something quite cool i would bet, anyway]

There is a blog here: WikiLeak.org with more news on that.

http://wikileaks.org.uk/wiki/Wikileaks_survives_censorship%2C_ddos%2C_fire :

Spy Blog: Wikileaks survives a fire, but is under Temporary Restraining Order partial censorship

Link

http://spyblog.org.uk

Country

United Kingdom

Date

2008-02-17

It looks as if the interesting and controversial, Wikileaks website, which promises "anonymous, untraceable, uncensorable" publication of leaked documents from whistleblowers, and which recently published the devastating No2ID Campaign annotated leaked UK National Identity Scheme document , is weathering some technical hitches and legal litigation attacks.

It seems that there has been a fire in an Uninterruptible Power Supply, which took the WikiLeaks web servers offline for much of Saturday, at their Swedish co-location hosting company, PRQ Inet, which has experience of attempts at censorship, through their former hosting of the peer to peer filesharing and political phenomenon, The Pirate Bay.

[editor: shortly before the fire unknown persons launched a 500Mbps distributed denial of service attack. It is not known if or how the attack is related to the other events described in this article].

More seriously and for the longer term, the brand name of WikiLeaks.org is no longer online, due to a Temporary Restraining Order issued by the California Northern District Court in San Francisco, aimed at a Domain Name Registrar, rather than just the actual publishers of controversial material, who happen to be outside of US legal jurisdiction..

See this partial public list of Wikileaks Cover Names for alternative URLs which have not yet been censored.

The plaintiffs in the California case are a Swiss Bank bank - Bank Julius Baer and its associated Cayman Islands tax avoidance subsidiaries, egged on by their expensive Hollywood media celebrity shyster lawyers Lavely & Singer. Julius Baer have been pursuing a Swiss whistleblower, some of whose leaked documents have been allegedly published on WikiLeaks.org. Why this is a problem when the world's financial monitoring and tax authorities appear to have already had access to them, is a mystery.

See Bank Julius Baer vs. Wikileaks

WikiLeakS.org have also had legal threats from ineptitude lawyers Schillings -- who in tried to censor blogs critical of the dubious Russian / Uzbek billionaire Alisher Usmanov] which caused much of the UK political and Arsenal football club fan blogosphere, to rally together in condemnation of the "collateral damage" which was to caused to innocent political bloggers, across the political spectrum.

Schillings are acting against WikiLeaks.org because of their publication of a prospectus to potential rescue investors of the Northern Rock plc bank scandal, something which is now obsolete, but was of massive public interest to all UK taxpayers and investors, and which the mainstream media caved in to after Schillings shyster threats, and an expensive (effectively taxpayer funded) High Court Injunction.

See Northern Rock vs. Wikileaks.

It is interesting that the first threats to this supposedly "uncensorable, anonymous, mass whistleblowing" project, do not come from Government Big Brother authorities, but from the private sector, and from equipment failures at a Single Point of Failure.

As with the Alisher Usmanov affair, the tactics of the media celibrity shysters in the Bank Julius Baer case is to threaten parts of what should be neutral, exempt internet infrastructure companies, with potentially expensive litigation in court rather than just the actaul publishers of the allegedly defamatory or confidential or copyright material.

Even if such companies win in court, the expense of kegal advice is such that it could cost them far more money in legal fees, than they are getting from a cheap domain name registration or webhosting package, so they are tempted to cave in to such shyster demands for censorship.

Only by pointing out the damage to their own brand names and potential profits, as a result of the disgust that most active internet customers feel, when the rich and powerful and their shysters, try to bully individuals or small groups of activists, can this economic threat be counterbalanced.

See the Censorship Threats from Lawyers category archive of blog postings on the WikiLeak.org blog, which comments on the technical, legal and ethical aspects of the WikiLeakS.org project.

The official press release: Drupal 6.0 Released - Bringing Greater Simplicity, Performance And Style To This Open Source Social Publishing Platform and in all languages: Drupal 6.0 released | drupal.org

5 Reasons you should choose Drupal for our Website | Translation Designs

What is the future of Drupal? very important!! see here: From infinite extensibility to infinite interoperability by Dries Buytaert who is the leader of the almightay drupal project:

I want the Drupal community to stay ahead of the competition. I want to start implementing today what proprietary CMS vendors will implement in 2013. From a content management system's point of view, I believe, that means (and I really hate to use the term 'Web 3.0'):

Web 3.0 = Web 2.0 + infinite interoperability

which roughly translates to:

Web 3.0 = Web 2.0 + data portability + web service APIs

While the short-term business opportunity might be to go after the social publishing market, I strongly believe that the long-term business opportunity lies in the infinite interoperability and that spans well beyond the social software market.

Thanks to Open Source software and companies like Google, the cost of building Web 2.0 applications will approach zero. Contrary to what one might think, this actually creates a lot of business opportunities. Opportunities that are best monetized through web services. But for that to happen, ubiquitous and seamless interoperability is key.

And here's How Drupal Will Save The World! Start here if you're confused.

Installing Drupal 6 | drupal.org - a great video introduction from Lullabot!

Drupal 6 Released and Ready to Manage your Content | Raincity Studios these guys have a pretty good summary of what is really going on with D6 and the various stuff going on around Drupal. Nice site design too. In Drupal we Trust | Raincity Studios

Another weekend with Drupal 6 | CMS Report sez it's good!

Modules: HOW ARE THE MODULES DOING for 6.0?? Contributed modules status - version 6.x | groups.drupal.org. It's gonna take a while (mid-March prolly) for key things.

Coming soon: Drupal Modules | Review, Rate, And Search Every Drupal Module

OPENID: This is actually of pivotal importance, for it changes how we think of Internet Identity! Make life easier for users with OpenID for Drupal | greenhughes.com

Tell search engines about new content on your Drupal site | greenhughes.com

Various posts trumpeting the Intro of Drupal 6:

• Drupal 6 released. Drupalistas celebrate! | TrevorTwining.com
• Drupal 6, now more than ever | GarfieldTech
• Drupal 6 Release | Idiotprogrammer
• Shiny Drupal 6 | OpenSpring
• Drupal 6 released! | Wim Leers has a good dev overview
• Drupal 6.0 Released | urlgreyhot is one of the more famed webdev blogs

How to rock theme development: if you haven't seen this, you haven't seen teh Futur of Teh Theme Developments! Theme developer module for Drupal 6 - Screencast

Zen theme 5.x-1.0 released for Drupal 5 and also is functional but Beta in D6, available here. Zen! Zen is a 'blank theme' good for developing on top of. Here's the docs for Zen.

For specific uses: Overriding contact.module, no core hacking required! | TrevorTwining.com

How to Remove Drupal System.css And Other Default CSS Files | Blamcast

Drupal Performance Agency | Tag1 Consulting, Inc. has some very helpful PDFs.

API = All new coolness: Saving Drupal code from database nonsense, Schema API is crucial for Module development and also the Batch API which handles... batching!

The nitty gritty: Drupal Hosting | Theme Garden Theme Garden is interesting but may not be cool with D6?

There will be a good Drupal 6 webcomic system which will let you make individual character pages, storylines and other badass elements. not bad! Webcomic 6.x Battle Plan | groups.drupal.org and it has its own group: Webcomics | groups.drupal.org

Lullabot is pretty sweet. They make good podcasts. For example how CCK works at the database level.

Social networking nibbles: SWiK's got stuff about Drupal. Drupal on Del.icio.us. Drupal for NonProfits is teh interesting!

DrupalDojo is teh r0x0rz.

Removing The Default CSS In Drupal 5 this has been an issue for me at various times, so it's quite a helpful nugget of code! This guy is also putting together something VERY cool and VERY needed: Drupal Modules | Review, Rate, And Search Every Drupal Module

Random site: this D6 supporter is getting more columns via Zen theme: brianpuccio.net | from my point of view

DrupalSites.net is cool but not working right at the moment.

For bored developers looking for useful projects: DROP Drupal Really Open Participation, is a project designed for organizing short-term tasks. which was a spinoff of google-highly-open-participation-drupal - Google Code project.

the google project created the very interesting Safe filter gizmo, lets you users make their own input filters : Flexifilter for D6. comes with a 'wiki' filter as example.

Looks like the News.infoshop.org is rocking Drupal. See their bits on Net War and cyber war.

CSS imagemaps: insane! A List Apart: Articles: CSS Sprites: Image Slicing’s Kiss of Death

Speed up your Drupal site: YSlow | Dries Buytaert. In the grand roster of 'really key things to read about Drupal' this particular article has achieved extreme fame! Apparently! Improving Drupal's page loading performance | Wim Leers

Tips on speeding up your Drupal sites | 2bits.com, Inc. - Drupal Development, Customization and Consulting

Yahoo shares their own more general tips: Best Practices for Speeding Up Your Web Site

I thought that yelvington.com had some interesting bits, from a guy who appears to be an old school journalist & drupal 6 supporter.

beta testing

See, you not only have to be a good coder to create a system like Linux, you have to be a sneaky bastard too.
--Linus Torvalds- via Detroit Wireless Project

Ok I just saw the first few minutes of this one, but clearly it looks pretty damn cool. Steal This Film: hosted on GoogleVideo:

Steal This Film - Part 1 and the official website: Steal This Film II.

The background seems to change upon reload, conveying "JAWS" and "The Godfather" ... intellectual properties - or disk images. downloadables: Steal This Film II available in many languages!

Documenting the steadfast movement against intellectual property, Part 1 of Steal This Film takes account of the prominent players in the Swedish piracy (copyright infringement) culture: The Pirate Bay, Piratbyrån (Piracy Bureau), and The Pirate Party. This includes a critical analysis of the regulatory capture asserted by Hollywood film industry to leverage economic sanctions by the United States government on Sweden through the WTO to pressure Swedish police into conducting an illegal search and seizure for the purpose of disrupting a competitive distribution channel: The Pirate Bay tracker for P2P Internet filesharing with the BitTorrent protocol.

Also i found this very interesting: a blog noted of Second Skin - Feature-length Documentary about Virtual Worlds. Here's the official site: Second Skin - a Pure West Documentary. [And accurately enough, my remark is in the context of someone else noticing it. That's really meta people. And thus, fundamentally boring. {way to go}]

Meanwhile in the Establishment: Google To Be Innovation Provider For GOP Convention. That's here, people.

Nerds will like this: CMS Report's Front Page News | CMS Report
I thought that Mashable.com was exceedingly interesting! Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:BitTorrent Developers Pledge To Subvert Comcast Filters
Politics Online Conference 2008: Focus on Privacy
Social Networking: Risks vs. Rewards
and naturally this site is run by Drupal and will be on Drupal 6: Drupal Version Six Released
Which in turn led me to some new things: Searchles | Home - search plus circles. some kinds of social integration thingy.
Why teach journalism students Dreamweaver? | Martin Stabe I really recommend checking out how the interface of tools, internets and Journalism with a capital J fit together. It's a big deal.
Samsung's See'N'Search set-top TV / Internet box demo video - Engadget
Are Social Networks Responsible for Teen Suicides? | CenterNetworks
Is MySpace Good for Society? A Freakonomics Quorum - Freakonomics - Opinion - New York Times Blog

check out teh Wired Journalists NING social network thingy!! NING lets you make your own social network sites.
Looking for teh opensource? don't forget good ol freshmeat.net: Welcome to freshmeat.net. I remember checking freshmeat all the damn time in high school senior year. a good 8 years ago and the site still looks EXACTLY the same. That's quality.
Schools going to Linux save tons of money: Techlearning > > Linux Makes the Grade > November 2007. And I'm sure everyone is really sad to be missing the Vista Experience.
Meanwhile is the Associated Press doomed? Down On The Wire - Forbes.comI saw the good old macalester activist wiki is still being used: Main Page - MPKB
When you need a global wireless network syndicate of networks, you need global.freifunk.net | syndicating the free wireless communities and blogs of the world and where is the news of Minnesota, people? (drupal powered, as is their blog: Freifunkblog | Freie Netzwerke, freies WLAN und freie (Funk-)Netze im deutschsprachigen Raum) and here's another German/English site about techs/Drupal/etc: perspektive 89 | Internationale Perspektive aus Berlin
Local lunatic: Slanderous Kook: I'm a Slander Victim - February 14, 2008
....And that's all for this random yet interesting enough post......

Well finally the browser crashed, leaving only a tide of very important links in the History panel. These are:

The Telecoms are getting away with Immunity for Crimes. It's all some big-ass farce. Etc. Go to Free Press and sign up, petitions etc available against the newest transgressions. SavetheInternet.com!!!

WiGLE - Wireless Geographic Logging Engine - Plotting WiFi on Maps - fantastic!!

Comics: Tom the Dancing Bug, The Normal Streak

LiveLeak.com - Bagpipes on a Police Budget

When they Come For Ya: "Homegrown Terrorism" Bill ~ News and Opinion Round-Up - Six Hours A Week: Adventures of a Sudden Patriot

On the Microsoft front, run YOUR PATCHES to save YOUR COMPUTER Microsoft's Monthlies.

We had to take a moment for the hacker side and appreciate some quality stories: Linux Kernel 2.6.17 - 2.6.24.1 vmsplice Local Root Exploit and who said there were no expl0its for linux?

SourceForge.net: airpwn and better yet, how the 802.11 wireless internet hack first got run @ Defcon, the mythical hacker conference: Goatse at Defcon -- brought to you by airpwn. l0lz indeed. latest on Defcon: hackers.ath.cx News from defcon 2008-01-31 23:09:36

SPORE MADNESS: If you haven't heard about Spore, which is essentially a combination of all awesome games EVER (from PacMan to PaxImperia, SimPetriDish to Civilization to galactic empires)... It's from the guy that invented SimCity. What more need you know? Spore (video game) - Wikipedia more here: Level Up : Exclusive: Will Wright Gives Level Up the Scoop On Why Spore Is Taking So Long to Get Right--And Why It Will Be Worth the Wait, Part I.

Meanwhile in mysteriously small places: 3D Crystal Grown On a DNA Lattice

Somewhere the hackers are looming, and holding seminars and also a very interesting RSS podcast feed: Black Hat : Black Hat Briefings and Training.

Trouble in Scientology: Jerry Connell Parody of Tom Cruise Scientology Video. Exclusive: The Cruise Indoctrination Video Scientology Tried To Suppress. LiveLeak.com - Tom Cruise Scientology Video Uncut

If you watch one video today: YouTube - Scientology's L. Ron Hubbard: Kooky Wacky Crazy Talk

Apparently a bunch of surly hacker kids are out to dismantle the Church of Scientology as it currently exists, with a kind of manifesto that was followed up by pretty serious thumpin' of the CoS websites. However I have not followed the story since then. I think maybe the kids got bored with it? YouTube: Message to Scientology

has been followed up with weird imitator videos. Frankly it could all be satire, but really I don't care. Jerry O'Connell and the hackers are basically on the same side. Scientology has a crazy corporate structure all over it, along with patently weird... alien stuff. Anyway there are also knockoff videos of weirdo bubble hacker children or something: VIDEO: War has just begun. Why not I guess? is it aesthetics or subversion? etc?

Which SuperDelegates are where???? 2008 Democratic Convention Watch: Do Superdelegates vote the same as their constituents? and Superdelegates who haven't endorsed and Superdelegate Endorsement List.

Obama seems to have the nomination tied up, but it's not over? It feels like it's over, I hope so... how do progressives get shafted by delegates? Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair: Lessons for Obama

Grumpiness among people: is Obama a cult of personality? what is charisma plus a political platform? a guy on stage? A Cult of Personality, The Revolution Returns: Obama and the Cult of Personality

Wow Microsoft is horrible: Microsoft sued over Windows Vista marketing and evidence of Wrong Doings: "Vista Capable" scheme was panned at Microsoft.

I am always impressed by the links @ cryptogon.com, top notch!

FBI's Infragard program is some kind of operational network, rapidly expanding in the corporate sector. It's apparent goal is to make a 'counter-terrorist' network out of all infrastructrure and big corporations or something. It is organized by FBI field offices, and could perhaps also be used to data mine the stuff held by the corporations. Or something??! Exclusive! The FBI Deputizes Business | The Progressive Magazine. More stuff about this is out there...

Judge: NYC can't use secret arguments in case of police surveillance of RNC protesters. Ahh the magic of Discovery.

...... I'm not sure what these links represented, but they are certainly interesting to some degree...

scientology

It did not occur to me that outer space could have a smell, but the Don Pettit of the International Space Station sez its "a rather pleasant sweet metallic sensation". sweet. (via /.)

"It reminded me of my college summers where I labored for many hours with an arc welding torch repairing heavy equipment for a small logging outfit. It reminded me of pleasant sweet smelling welding fumes. That is the smell of space."

The original SimCity got open-sourced as 'Micropolis'! It's cool how old games get open-sourced (see the Marathon Infinity Aleph One project). And better yet, it got donated to the One Laptop Per Child Project. More @ /. As a true SimCity zealot, I have to say that handing it over to all those kids in the developing world is really quite cool!

UK News: you better shut off your fuckin wireless Internet router because if someone grabs a Sony BMG album, you're on the Big Shit List: Internet users could be banned over illegal downloads - Times Online

Drupal 6.0 released: its a big deal. One guru I know dropped what he was doing at his job and installed that right away on his test server. That's devotion, people. That's one hell of a platform.

The McCain version of the schmaltzy black-and-white Obama rock-n-roll celeb video. john.he.is. [satire, people]

Comcast is really getting tangled up by playing content police and jamming competing video services, the Washington Post noticed:

Marvin Ammori, the general counsel for Free Press, said Comcast's behavior is the second major example of an service provider overstepping its authority in an attempt to quash competition. In March 2005, the FCC fined Madison River Communications for blocking calls by competitor Vonage, which provided free calls over the Internet.

Ammori said that by interfering with video transfers, Comcast is trying to protect its television and On Demand video services.

Among the leading pranks of the corporate behemoth: Using pervasive data mining to jam BitTorrent yet claiming that they are somehow not responsible for the vast levels of piracy on their network. But also, that it's legit to jam legal BitTorrents even though the system is a 'killer app' that will eventually destroy their business model (arbitraging the distribution of content, getting a cut from the generators of the content for the privilege of vending it to the ever-fattening American Consumer). The FCC is getting up in their shit. Etc.

The uber-tech savvy audience at Slashdot points out that if Comcast wants to play traffic cop and stop the Torrents, they should not be legally shielded for creating the crime of transmitting the illegal Torrents in the first place. Thansal sez:

The argument here is this:

ISPs are currently not liable for what illegal things their customers do with the service provided.

One of the reasonings behind this is that they should not be mining traffic enough to know wth is going on. (IANAL, this is a bad explanation)

Comcast says that they SHOULD be mining traffic to shape it and see wth is going on.

Comcast should then be held liable for any illegal activities that they 'know' about because of this monitoring.

[IANAL = I Am Not A Lawyer, tho really that twisted tribe is the most anal.] A ton of smart arguments in here about it.

Also they have been bumping the rate for Internet-only connection to a whopping $65 a month, up from about $50. However, if you yell at them enough when they call to tell you about the bump, it is apparently possible to avoid getting charged. This is what I was told. Comcast is such a disaster.

See FreePress.net for more on the battles of Net Neutrality and Corporate Nonsense. And download Miro, an open source RSS-friendly video player which can also slurp the FLV files out of YouTube, and indeed lets you subscribe to HD-quality BitTorrent powered content 'channels'. This program, Miro, is indeed the Comcast Killer. Shit!

That's all........

A big adventure is at hand: I and two friends are going down to Iowa right now. We are going down there to see what is going on and wander around. I just figured out to upload videos directly from my phone, and we will have other tech items to capture the Iowa Caucus scene.

Videos will be posted to YouTube consistently under the username HongPong unless we get bored/and/or thrown out @ http://www.youtube.com/hongpong . We will also have some updates posted on http://www.hongpong.com .

My friend Bobby "the Captain" is a strong Ron Paul supporter. I, Dan Feidt, am suspicious of the whole scene, and Andy French is a renegade philosopher. With one Ron Paul and two agnostics in the mix, what will happen?

Anyone on the scene or having a tip for us, can send us a buzz at 6513387661@myhelio.com or 651-338 7661.

Thanks for your interest!

Another riveting tale of Ecto blog software beta testing. Ecto is at Beta 16 now and starting to chug along nicely.

Myahhh... Another day, another pesky beta bug. I don't really think this can be blamed on the developer, though, and certainly when you uses deez Betas, you're gonna take a chance on losing some data.

It seemed that my accounts preference file got tangled up into my instant messenger preferences, which is pretty weird. But it caused the program to jam up after launch without any feedback about what was wrong. Fortunately the ever-verbose OS X Console program told me a corrupt preference file was confusing things.

Moving accounts.plist out of the ~/Application Support/ecto3 folder deleted all my accounts, and blog post drafts, but it also cleared up the situation entirely.

The file had lots of odd text/binary characters in it. Not sure what it all meant. Annoying stuff. In a somewhat fortunate twist it appears that the lost drafts are still hanging around in encoded XML format at ecto3/items , so they are not totally lost to the bit bucket.

As you might imagine, this situation curtailed all attempts at pretty-looking blogging for a couple weeks, while the holidays ran their course.

Everything is pretty cool right now, and now doubly cool because I managed to troubleshoot a naughty application through the Console.

Problem solved. Next time we will tell you how to make Windows Vista Not Suck. Just kidding; that's impossible.

Admittedly, we're fishing in murky waters on this one. But this stuff is pretty weird. And I am watching the X-Files right now. So there.

The Stanford Research Institute. Their role seems to fall under the totally forgotten second evil complex Eisenhower warned us about! Everyone and their mom knows by now that the 'military-industrial complex' is the root of all the dang problems. I agree with that a long ways.

But recently a different pattern has become apparent: the Doctor Strangelove kind of Establishment Troll. Really, it's an obvious pattern that lacks a name, another shady feedback loop of authority and federal spending that wants to control All of Existence. The Neo-Cons cruise in this sector, but they don't define it.

Eisenhower saw this as a Threat. Let's listen in on that famous speech where he coined "military industrial complex":

.......But threats, new in kind or degree, constantly arise.

Of these, I mention two only.

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.

Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.

In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system – ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.

Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we – you and I, and our government – must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without asking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.

Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.

Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war – as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years – I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.

Happily, I can say that war has been avoided. Steady progress toward our ultimate goal has been made. But, so much remains to be done. As a private citizen, I shall never cease to do what little I can to help the world advance along that road......

Heady stuff. So what would the evil scheme of the scientific-technological elite look like, circa mid-1970s? What utopian vision would secure elite control in all possible futures?

Answer: The Stanford Research Institute's "Changing Images of Man", a 1974 classic! It got around on BitTorrent before, with this description:

Changing Images of Man - Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International) released a report in 1974 that has become a classic in the "alternative futures" literature. It has been adopted as a text in non-traditional courses at more than a dozen universities and reprinted repeatedly by SRI. Changing Images of Man explores the reasons why changes may have to take place in the fundamental conceptual premises, laws, attitudes and ethics once suitable for guiding the development of the United States and other highly industrialized nations if a humane (and "workable") future is to be achievable. It discusses the evidence that such changes may be occurring and the possibility that an evolutionary transformation may be underway that is at least as profound as the transition in Europe when the Medieval Age gave way to the rise of science and the Industrial Revolution. SYSTEMS SCIENCE AND WORLD ORDER LIBRARY -- Explorations of World Order 255 pages - 1974, 1982 O.W. Markley, Willis W. Harman (DIGICAM PHOTOS OF ORIGINAL - PDF FORMAT)

Here's the PDF link: DOWNLOAD "Changing Images of Man" (30 MB) in PDF. Check out the site I got it from: “Changing Images of Man” in PDF Format // Skilluminati Research.

There is plenty of weird and creepy stuff in here, but I would recommend seeking out the chapter about paranormal activities to put under control. These guys were doing the research themselves! As some put it, a bunch of evil establishment dudes taking lots of LSD to figure out how to beat the hippies!

Here are some tiny, vaguely menacing JPEGs from the book. I would recommend starting in around Page 80, when the stuff about paranormal ESP and psi phenomenon really gets going. These guys were way into this stuff. (Sorry I can't make these more clear- a software glitch tonight: use your psi/imagination? Or else just go to those barely squintable page numbers?)

See also:

Joe Delgado’s “Physical Control of the Mind” , Willis Harman shows up in the darndest places and Scientists on Acid: The Story Behind “Changing Images of Man” which quotes from something called "Mind Control, World Control":

One associate of Hubbard's was New World Order theorist Willis Harman at the Stanford Research Institute. SRI had earlier recieved grants from the US Army to research chemical incapacitants. When visited by a representative of the underground press at SRI, Harman told the man, "There's a war going on between your side and mine. And my side is not going to lose."

This sounds suspiciously like The Big Lebowski: "THE BUMS LOST!"

Hubbard was specifically assigned to the Alternative Futures Project, which performed future-oriented strategic planning for corporations and government agencies. Harman and Hubbard shared a goal "to provide the [LSD] experience to political and intellectual leaders around the world." Harman acknowledges that "Al's job was to run the special sessions for us."

As a bonus, today's post includes the profoundly elitist "The Crisis of Democracy; Report on the Governability of Democracies to the Trilateral Commission" by Samuel Huntington and other suspicious eggheads. I have to throw in some more nuglets from those dang Skilluminati: PDF: DOWNLOAD "Crisis of Democracy" -- 1975 Trilateral Report

The Democratic Challenge to Authority

The essence of the democratic surge of the 1960s was a general challenge to the existing systems of authority, public and private. In one form or another, this challenge manifested itself in the family, the university, business, public and private associations, politics, the government bureaucracy, and the military services. People no longer felt the compulsion to obey those whom they had previously considered superior to themselves in age, rank, status, expertise, character and talents. Within most organizations, discipline eased and differences in status became blurred. Each group its right to participate equally -- and perhaps more than equally -- in the decisions which affected itself.

A Question of Vision

What is in short supply in Democratic societies today is not consensus on the rules of the game, but a sense of purpose as to what one should achieve by playing the game. In the past, people found their purposes in religion, in nationalism, and in ideology. But neither church, nor state, nor class now commands people's loyalties. In some measure, Democracy itself was inspired by manifestations of each of these forces and commitments.

Protestantism sanctified the individual conscience; nationalism postulated the equality of citizens; and liberalism provided the rationale for a limited government based on consent. But now all three gods have failed. We have witnessed the dissipation of religion, the withering away of nationalism, and the decline -- if not the end -- of class-based ideology.

The Dangers of Freedom

The democratic spirit is egalitarian, individualistic, populist and impatient with distinctions of class and rank. The spread of that spirit weaks the traditional threats to democracy posed by such groups as the aristocracy, the church and the military. At the same time, the pervasive spirit of democracy may pose an intrinsic threat and undermine all forms of association, weakening the social bonds which hold together family, enterprise, and community. Every social organization requires, in some measure, inequalities in authority and distinctions in function. To the extent that the spread of democratic temper corrodes all these, exercising a leveling and homogenizing influence, it destroys the bases of trust and cooperation among citizens, and creates obstacles to collaboration of any common purpose.

Now that's what I call some authoritarian discourse! So apparently all this utopian stuff comes from a bunch of Theosophists, the mysterious super-religion invented by Madame Blavatsky...

Anything about Theosophy gets pretty weird. It's like Scientology minus the lie detectors and Applied Satanism? But Scientologists were running the remote viewing programs at SRI too apparently... I think I'll stop there....

In any case, I found this stuff to be a classic angle on the exact evil Second Complex of Scientific-Technological Elite and their plan to dominate public policy! Which Eisenhower warned you about, and all your acid-dropping Hippie Professors forgot to teach you about too!

The plan has a second face, indeed, General Eisenhower!

This, people, is from about four pages of One PDF file. Of which I have just gotten about 600 I think. Yes, 5 minutes into this stuff, we're already inside a huge all-encompassing grid of control run by Lockheed Martin. It's like Minority Report, see?

We'll cut our eyes out to escape the "prescence" provided along Interstate 35.

Wow that was quick eh?

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS? MORE COMING SOON.

OMG

by the way: I bet hillary knows.