Disclaimer: This site is *not* affiliated with AIPAC, Ahmed Chalabi, K Street, ClearChannel, or Urban Moving Systems of Weehawken, NJ. In case you were curious. Full disclosure: I have some shares of Apple and therefore I have an Apple bias. Yum. Also got a tiny bit of gold!
Special greetings to Rule of Law Radio / Axxiom for Liberty listeners! We had a great time chatting last Friday for moar than an hour about every cutting edge dimension of the military-industrial police state, hosted by Kaye Beach and her friend (nickname Matrix? I forget). Get the live recording of all 2 hours here (110MB) or 13MB lo-fi version. I joined about a half-hour in, but in the first minutes they talked about being Ron Paul delegates at the 2008 RNC, thoroughly abused by the Man, and leaving as changed people. A great springboard into fusion centers, the NAFTA superhighway and more, with a guest from OK SAFE as well. [I forget her name right now as well but she was kewl!]*******
I've been there and back again lately, leaving far too little time to check in. We are expecting new videoz to leakify from points interesting Real Soon Here. Stay tuned for that one... And now, my video exposé of the Fort Snelling Undercover - in all his epic fail glory:
Intrusive photographer admits it: a government employee spies on rallies against Fort Snelling & immigration policies at the Whipple Federal Building. He gets a "thumbs up" from Haukoos, lead Department of Homeland Security/Federal Protective Service security officer. At Fort Snelling, the photographer admits he's a government employee but won't say if he's a federal employee, then refuses to show his lanyard (even though he says it has his ID) and he promptly runs away in his blue truck. Same logic of "Federal Control" persists for centuries, but this video shows everyone can deal with sleazy spy photographers: block them, tape them, confront them about their chain of command. Organizers try to mitigate his efforts to collect intelligence on rally participants. Another element: Homeland Security radio transmission seems to order operations "systematically". Could this man be photographing everyone for addition to federal facial recognition databases? What data practices rules apply to this man's camera and his taxpayer-financed salary? Amazingly, some people do not realize this conduct & aggressive spying on political dissent happens all the time even under a Democratic presidency. Video edited by Dan Feidt for Twin Cities Indymedia - http://tc.indymedia.org Video shot by Dan Feidt & Sally Jo Sorensen - http://bluestemprairie.com (Sally Jo clips of him @ Whipple Building) LICENSE: This video is licensed Creative Commons/ShareAlike. Please remix and share!!
Here was the transcript of the whole Helen Thomas clip, which of course was released in a heavily spun way [via Balloon Juice » You Got Played]
Q: Any advice for these young people over here for starting out in the press corps?
Thomas: Go for it. You’ll never be unhappy. You’ll always keep people informed, you’ll always keep learning. The greatest thing of the profession is you’ll never stop learning.
Q: Today they are covering the Jewish Heritage Month.
Thomas: ... and meet the President.
A: Any comments on Israel? We’re asking everyone today, any comments on..
Thomas: Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine.
Q: Oooh. Any better comments?
Thomas: Remember, these people are occupied, and it’s their land. It’s not German and it’s not Poland.
Q: So where should they go, what should they do?
Thomas: They can go home.
Q: Where is home?
Thomas: Poland. Germany.
Q: So you are saying Jews should go back to Poland?
Thomas: And America and everywhere else. Why push people out who have lived their for centuries? See?
Q: Now, are you familiar with the history of that region and what took place?
Thomas: Very much. I’m of Arab background.
{It goes on for a little while with friendly banter about languages they both speak with words I can not even begin to spell.}
Q: Thank you.
Thomas: All the best to you (directed at the Jewish students). Go for it- go for journalism, you’ll never regret it.
AUTHORITARIAN ESCHATON == ARTILECT OF DOOM!: Last night I remembered that the Roomba cleaning robot is made by a company that also makes killer robots. A review of what they're up to now: the scary wikipedia page, PackBot, iRobot Negotiator , & more. "Chembot is a DARPA-funded prototype of a shape-shifting robot without motors, wheels or any rigid elements. It runs on chemical power and is made using dielectric elastomers, which are extremely flexible and can alter their shape in electric or magnetic fields. Ultimately, the program aims to build a robot that is completely squishy and able to squeeze through a hole 'the size of a 10 pence piece'.when was this made"
What will control these killer robots in 80 years or so? Via cryptogon.com, The spooky new idea to check out is the ARTILECT -- aka the bossy killer super-intelligence that will wipe us all out like ants. Now some guy who's leading the charge to build China's artificial brain has actually considered the implications of his work. From the fine new Technofascism blog, Hugo de Garis and The Coming Artilect War:
If you haven’t heard ofHugo de Garis, AI researcher and Professor at China’s Xiamen University, then you’ve probably never heard of an Artilect either. A contraction of Artificial Intellect, the Artilects are future creations that, according to de Garis, will be immortal, godlike robotic beings that, due to being built on a substrate of nanoscale computer chips, will have billions of times the intelligence of the average human. Needless to say, these Artilects would not for a second hesitate in wiping out the entire human species if their need dictates; much like a human wouldn’t trouble themselves over running over an ant colony on their way to work.
It’s important to listen to de Garis because he is one of those rare scientific researchers that actually considers the implications of his work. In de Garis’ view, in the late 21st century humanity will have the technological ability to create the Artilects. At that point, humans will be divided into three camps: the Terrans, who will attempt to violently prevent the creation of the Artilects; the Cosmists, who think building them is a good idea; and the Cyborgists, who will attempt to merge with the Artilects to preserve some shred of their humanity. These three camps will fight it out and the winner will decide the fate of the planet. Since the war will be fought with late 21st century weaponry, the death toll is expected to be in the billions.
Considering all this, I predict that humanity will split into three major philosophical, ideological, political groups, which I label as follows.
--The Cosmists (based on the word "cosmos") will be in favor of building these godlike machines (the artilects), who would be immortal, think a million times faster than humans, have unlimited memory, go anywhere, do anything and take any shape. The Cosmists would take a quasi-religious view that they are god builders. Privately, I am a Cosmist, but publicly, I have mixed feelings about the rise of the artilect.
--The Terrans (based on the word "terra," meaning the earth) will be opposed to the construction of artilects, fearing that in a highly advanced form, the artilects may decide to wipe us out. To ensure that the probability that this might happen is zero, the Terrans will insist that the artilects are never built in the first place. But this strategy runs utterly contrary to what the Cosmists want. The Terrans will be prepared to go to war against the Cosmists to ensure the survival of the human species.
--The Cyborgists (based on the word "cyborg," meaning cybernetic organism that is part machine, part human) will want to become artilect gods themselves by adding artilectual components to their own brains, thus avoiding the bitter conflict between the Cosmists and the Terrans.
1985 GANDER FALSE FLAG AIR CRASH CONCEALS NEUTRON BOMB TEST etc: Moving right along, I would like to add something about a 1985 false-flag plane crash. aka: Arrow Air Flight 1285 - Wikipedia.
A while ago I ran into someone who was involved with this. A private transport plane carrying lots of military personnel and cargo from Cairo to the US crashed near Gander, Canada in 1985. It obviously exploded somehow, and actually for once the National Transportation Safety Board failed to unanimously peddle the establishment coverup.
This was actually a false-flag bombing carried out by people friendly with Oliver North & the Usual Suspects of Iran-Contra fame. It was a bombing "required" to advance numerous coverups, included a need to get rid of bodies from dead illegal Special Forces operations in Lebanon, and also the remains of illegal neutron bomb testing in the Sinai Peninsula. [US military personnel cooked with neutrons were murdered en route rather than risk public exposure after reaching a stateside medical facility]
The records of the Gander Crash have been sealed for 70 years because it was a false-flag coverup -- and additionally there has been at least one direct death threat from a 'credible source' to shut people up.
I was pleased to find a surprisingly good video about it, from a show on Spike TV no less? For students of conspiracy video styles, I thought the editing on this segment was concise & excellent as well:
To: pepis[at]googlegroups.com,pepis[at]yahoogroups.com
From: Tony Gosling <tony[at]cultureshop.org.uk>
Subject: [PEPIS] Leaked participants of 2010 meeting? Bilderberg participants 2010 (in alphabetic order)
(Present) Occupation
BEL Davignon, Etienne F. Honorary Chairman, Bilderberg Meetings; Vice Chairman, Suez Tractebel
DEU Ackermann, Josef Chairman of the Management Board and the Group Executive
Committee, Deutsche Bank AG
USA Alexander, Keith B. Director, National Security Agency
GRC Alogoskoufis, George Member of Parliament
USA Altman, Roger C. Chairman and CEO, Evercore Partners, Inc.
GRC Arapoglou, Takis Chairman and CEO, National Bank of Greece
TUR Babacan, Ali Minister of State and Deputy Prime Minister
GRC Bakoyannis, Dora Minister of Foreign Affairs
NOR Baksaas, Jon Fredrik President and CEO, Telenor Group
PRT Balsemão, Francisco Pinto Chairman and CEO, IMPRESA, S.G.P.S.; Former Prime
Minister
FRA Baverez, Nicolas Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
ITA Bernabè, Franco CEO Telecom Italia SpA
SWE Bildt, Carl Minister of Foreign Affairs
SWE Björklund, Jan Minister for Education; Leader of the Lìberal Party
CHE Blocher, Christoph Former Swiss Counselor; Former Chairman and CEO, EMS Group
FRA Bompard, Alexandre CEO, Europe 1 USA Boot, Max Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow for National Security Studies, Council on Foreign Relations
AUT Bronner, Oscar Publisher and Editor, Der Standard
FRA Castries, Henri de Chairman of the Management Board and CEO, AXA
ESP Cebrián, Juan Luis CEO, Grupo PRISA
BEL Coene, Luc Vice Governor, National Bank of Belgium
USA Collins, Timothy C. Senior Managing Director and CEO, Ripplewood Holdings, LLC
GRC David, George A. Chairman, Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Co. (H.B.C.) S.A.
GRC Diamantopoulou, Anna Member of Parliament
ITA Draghi, Mario Governor, Banca d'Italia
USA Eberstadt, Nicholas N. Henry Wendt Scholar in Political Economy, American
Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
DNK Eldrup, Anders President, DONG Energy A/S
ITA Elkann, John Chairman, EXOR S.p.A.; Vice Chairman, Fiat S.p.A.
DEU Enders, Thomas CEO, Airbus SAS
ESP Entrecanales, José Manuel Chairman, Acciona
AUT Faymann, Werner Federal Chancellor USA Ferguson, Niall Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History, Harvard University IRL Gleeson, Dermot Chairman, AIB Group
USA Graham, Donald E. Chairman and CEO, The Washington Post Company
NLD Halberstadt, Victor Professor of Economics, Leiden University; Former
Honorary Secretary General of Bilderberg Meetings
NLD Hirsch Ballin, Ernst M.H. Minister of Justice
USA Holbrooke, Richard C. US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan
NLD Hommen, Jan H.M. Chairman, ING N.V.
INT Hoop Scheffer, Jaap G. de Secretary General, NATO
USA Johnson, James A. Vice Chairman, Perseus, LLC USA Jordan, Jr., Vernon E. Senior Managing Director, Lazard Frères & Co. LLC FIN Katainen, Jyrki Minister of Finance
USA Keane, John M. Senior Partner, SCP Partners; General, US Army, Retired
USA Kent, Muhtar President and CEO, The Coca-Cola Company
GBR Kerr, John Member, House of Lords; Deputy Chairman, Royal Dutch Shell plc
DEU Klaeden, Eckart von Foreign Policy Spokesman, CDU/CSU
USA Kleinfeld, Klaus President and CEO, Alcoa Inc.
TUR Koç, Mustafa V. Chairman, Koç Holding A.S.
DEU Koch, Roland Prime Minister of Hessen
TUR Kohen, Sami Senior Foreign Affairs Columnist, Milliyet
USA Kravis, Henry R. Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute, Inc.
INT Kroes, Neelie Commissioner, European Commission
GRC Kyriacopoulos, Ulysses Chairman and Board member of subsidiary companies
of the S&B Group
FRA Lagarde, Christine Minister for the Economy, Industry and Employment
INT Lamy, Pascal Director General, World Trade Organization
PRT Leite, Manuela Ferreira Leader, PSD
ESP León Gross, Bernardino General Director of the Presidency of the Spanish
Government
DEU Löscher, Peter CEO, Siemens AG
GBR Mandelson, Peter Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory
Reform
INT Maystadt, Philippe President, European Investment Bank
CAN McKenna, Frank Former Ambassador to the US
GBR Micklethwait, John Editor-in-Chief, The Economist
FRA Montbrial, Thierry de President, French Institute for International Relations
ITA Monti, Mario President, Universita Commerciale Luigi Bocconi
ESP Moratinos Cuyaubé, Miguel A. Minister of Foreign Affairs
USA Mundie, Craig J. Chief Research and Strategy Officer, Microsoft Corporation
CAN Munroe-Blum, Heather Principal and Vice Chancellor, McGill University
NOR Myklebust, Egil Former Chairman of the Board of Directors SAS, Norsk Hydro ASA
DEU Nass, Matthias Deputy Editor, Die Zeit NLD Beatrix, H.M. the Queen of the Netherlands ESP Nin Génova, Juan Maria President and CEO, La Caixa
FRA Olivennes, Denis CEO and Editor in Chief, Le Nouvel Observateur
FIN Ollila, Jorma Chairman, Royal Dutch Shell plc
GBR Osborne, George Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer
FRA Oudéa, Frédéric CEO, Société Générale
ITA Padoa-Schioppa, Tommaso Former Minister of Finance; President of Notre Europe
GRC Papahelas, Alexis Journalist, Kathimerini
GRC Papalexopoulos, Dimitris Managing Director, Titan Cement Co. S.A.
GRC Papathanasiou, Yannis Minister of Economy and Finance USA Perle, Richard N. Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
BEL Philippe, H.R.H. Prince
PRT Pinho, Manuel Minister of Economy and Innovation
INT Pisani-Ferry, Jean Director, Bruegel
CAN Prichard, J. Robert S. President and CEO, Metrolinx
ITA Prodi, Romano Chairman, Foundation for Worldwide Cooperation
FIN Rajalahti, Hanna Managing Editor, Talouselämä
CAN Reisman, Heather M. Chair and CEO, Indigo Books & Music Inc.
NOR Reiten, Eivind President and CEO, Norsk Hydro ASA
CHE Ringier, Michael Chairman, Ringier AG
USA Rockefeller, David Former Chairman, Chase Manhattan Bank
USA Rubin, Barnett R. Director of Studies and Senior Fellow, Center for
International Cooperation, New York University
TUR Sabanci Dinçer, Suzan Chairman, Akbank
CAN Samarasekera, Indira V. President and Vice-Chancellor, University of Alberta
AUT Scholten, Rudolf Member of the Board of Executive Directors, Oesterreichische
Kontrollbank AG
USA Sheeran, Josette Executive Director, UN World Food Programme
ITA Siniscalco, Domenico Vice Chairman, Morgan Stanley International
ESP Solbes, Pedro Vice-President of Spanish Government; Minister of Economy and
Finance
ESP Sophia, H.M. the Queen of Spain
USA Steinberg, James B. Deputy Secretary of State
INT Stigson, Bjorn President, World Business Council for Sustainable Development
GRC Stournaras, Yannis Research Director, Foundation for Economic and Industrial
Research (IOBE)
IRL Sutherland, Peter D. Chairman, BP plc and Chairman, Goldman Sachs International
INT Tanaka, Nobuo Executive Director, IEA
GBR Taylor, J. Martin Chairman, Syngenta International AG
USA Thiel, Peter A. President, Clarium Capital Management, LLC
DNK Thorning-Schmidt, Helle Leader ofThe Social Democratic Party
DNK Thune Andersen, Thomas Partner and CEO, Maersk Oil
AUT Treichl, Andreas Chairman and CEO, Erste Group Bank AG
INT Trichet, Jean-Claude President, European Central Bank
GRC Tsoukalis, Loukas President of the Hellenic Foundation for European and
Foreign Policy (ELlAMEP)
TUR Ugur, Agah CEO, Borusan Holding
FIN Vanhanen, Matti Prime Minister
CHE Vasella, Daniel L. Chairman and CEO, Novartis AG
NLD Veer, Jeroen van der Chief Executive, Royal Dutch Shell plc
USA Volcker, Paul A. Chairman, Economic Recovery Advisory Board
SWE Wallenberg, Jacob Chairman, Investor AB
SWE Wallenberg, Marcus Chairman, SEB
NLD Wellink, Nout President, De Nederlandsche Bank
NLD Wijers, Hans Chairman, AkzoNobel NV
GBR Wolf, Martin H. Associate Editor & Chief Economics Commentator, The Financial
Times
USA Wolfensohn, James D. Chairman, Wolfensohn & Company, LLC USA Wolfowitz, Paul Visiting Scholar, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
INT Zoellick, Robert B. President, The World Bank Group
GBR Bredow, Vendeline von Business Correspondent, The Economist (Rapporteur)
GBR McBride, Edward Business Editor, The Economist (Rapporteur)
• AUT Austria
• BEL Belgium
• CHE Switzerland
• CAN Canada
• DEU Germany
• DNK Denmark
• ESP Spain
• FRA France
• FIN Finland
• GBR Great Britain
• GRC Greece
• IRL Ireland
• INT International
• ITA Italy
• NOR Norway
• NLD Netherlands
• PRT Portugal
• SWE Sweden
• TUR Turkey
• USA United States of America
--
Please consider seriously the reason why these elite institutions are not discussed in the mainstream press despite the immense financial and political power they wield?
There are sick and evil occultists running the Western World. They are power mad lunatics like something from a kid's cartoon with their fingers on the nuclear button! Armageddon is closer than you thought. Only God can save our souls from their clutches, at least that's my considered opinion - Tony
Wolfowitz & Perle be plottin a comeback, watch yo self ....plus the new site? http://www.bilderbergmeetings.org/index.html
*********
Can has Drupal 7? In Drupal news, well the Drupal community is slowly chugging through to Drupal 7, and there are a few things people can do to help - see Drupal core improvements | drupal.org for a roundup on that. It is currently on Drupal 7.0 Alpha 5 released as of May 23. There are 67 critical issues right now; when that hits zero it's release time.
*********
I know that LRAD! Russia Today has done a fine job covering the latest developments in crushing North American dissent - what nice LRAD footage from Chicago Indymedia (provided courtesy Glass Bead Collective :-D )
It's been a long time in coming, but now we've got Drupal 6 running on hongpong.com. The database patching and everything else went perfectly. I've installed the 'Fusion' theme and have just started tweaking it up (please be patient for more tweaks... ) I whipped up a silly new banner featuring Andrew Jackson battling the banker octopus and the Rocky Taconite figure from Silver Bay MN.
Some quick notes on Drupal 6, which was released... wow, last February? It took a few months for Drupal 6 to mature as a platform (due to a lack of important contributed modules that got heavily re-engineered). For Drupal 7, which is due in Q1 2010, we'll have a lot more awesome new features and the contrib modules will be in better shape right away. (Drupal 7 will roll when 'critical issues' gets to zero.) Some Drupal 6 features from the announcement:
Actions and triggers
...Automate your processes with just a few clicks using the new and powerful "actions" feature. No programming knowledge required! Actions are available for posts, users, comments and more.
Optimized code
Drupal 6 splits most core modules into smaller pieces and only loads what's needed, resulting in less code per page. JavaScript aggregation and block-level caching further improves performance for both authenticated and anonymous users.
A new menu system
Drupal's menu system has been rewritten from scratch, making it much more efficient and powerful.
Better file handling
Files are keyed to users instead of posts, and new, reusable validation functions are available that check file sizes, extensions and resolution.
Better polls
Quickly add and manage poll options.
Better anonymous commenting
Drupal 6 remembers the contact details of anonymous posters, automatically filling them in for their next comment.
Hey all,
Thanks for stopping by the brand-new FeidtDesign.com. I've just launched a new business to meet the ever-growing need for solid website development, social media, tech training and all that other good stuff.
I'm hoping that this site turns out to be far more useful than the usual brochureware sites that clog the Internet. Most of the work I hope to do involves open source software, and it's only proper to offer up tips and constructive help for dealing with the really nifty world of open-source. Thus, Projects & Notes will offer helpful material for all.
Pretty straightforward? This site (and the business!) is brand new, so it'll take a bit of polishing yet. However, I think that you'll eventually find it a useful resource. Register if you like -- FeidtDesign.com is intended to be participatory!
Thanks for stopping by!
--Dan Feidt, August 17, 2009
I nearly had a horrible day today, leaving my trusty old Helio phone on a bench at the University of Minnesota mall. A good samaritan named Rose picked it up and called the Boiler Room coffee shop back after I tried the phone. I got it back! Thanks a ton, Rose, you saved yet another messy situation from befalling me.
What happened?!
It's been a strange July! I parted ways with my job of four years & change @ Politics in Minnesota as a staff writer and Web Editor. We were really at the top of our game, which is as good as anything you might hope for. The PoliticsMN Twitter account hit 4000 followers right when I left! And I'll leave it at that.
What about the car?!
That was its own dramatic tale. It involved a savage journey somewhere near the heart of the American dream. I still need to get sent the photos.
What are you doing next?!
I am setting up a design and web development company!
For a long time I have fixed up Macs, developed Drupal themes and other websites, edited video, done various tweaks and twists on technical stuff, but I never tried to establish a proper company to marshall this stuff under one roof -- because of course, that means getting a solid business operation together.
I've spent a bit of time in corporate America and a long time working for smaller businesses, as well as a really nice time at a temporary gig developing at Macalester College's development office after I graduated. (I picked up enough ASP.net / C# / Oracle to get the job done pretty quickly, thanks to Lloyd's really solid training, and other skills as well.)
Overall it has been a productive experience, and I've come to know a lot of talented and cool people all over the place -- many of them, small business proprietors of their own. If these people can do it, I can do it. I'm feeling pretty much ready to get stuff going on my own -- if it doesn't work, it doesn't work.
I've got a good feeling about this, though, because...
Drupal has the benefit of being more versatile and modular than most other content systems, so it's easily extended for different types of websites. It's overkill for a regular blog, but if you want to get complex, have social media type functions (for example, making Facebook clones), then Drupal is really what you want.
Also, the all-important core private team at Acquia is getting venture capital infusions. Much like RedHat put the legs under Linux in the wobbly early days, Acquia has the fancy high-end services and community-friendly engine to advance Drupal over its main rivals, Wordpress and Joomla on the CMS end, as well as the various PHP frameworks that let you develop your sites more from scratch.
OK, that seems fairly plausible!
Yes, it mainly consists of working through design gigs and running Quickbooks. Unlike in the physical economy, there's actually more than enough aggregate demand to keep things rolling. That, my friends, is not too bad.
A little bit of Hongpong spam got away from me after a Spam module upgrade. Spam module is annoying so I am going to try Mollom, which checks all your comments through their system. It runs on Drupal, Wordpress, Joomla and has development stuff for Ruby, Java, PHP5 and .Net.
Also finally Drupal 6.3 and 5.8 got released, the 5.8 is a security update and 6.3 fixes many problems with the 6 platform. Delightful - now 6.x development can finally speed ahead!
Eh, I am on a Drupal kick, and might as well bookmark some nerd things. (I have been adding quite a bit to my del.icio.us bookmarks too, lately, be sure to look @ the top of the page for those).
Fixes Released for Massive Internet Security Issue
On July 8th, technology vendors from across the industry will simultaneously release patches for their products to close a major vulnerability in the underpinnings of the Internet. While most home users will be automatically updated, it’s important for all businesses to immediately update their networks. This is the largest synchronized security update in the history of the Internet, and is the result of hard work and dedication across dozens of organizations.
Earlier this year, professional security research Dan Kaminsky discovered a major issue in how Internet addresses are managed (Domain Name System, or DNS). This issue was in the design of DNS and not limited to any single product. DNS is used by every computer on the Internet to know where to find other computers. Using this issue, an attacker could easily take over portions of the Internet and redirect users to arbitrary, and malicious, locations. For example, an attacker could target an Internet Service Provider (ISP), replacing the entire web — all search engines, social networks, banks, and other sites — with their own malicious content. Against corporate environments, an attacker could disrupt or monitor operations by rerouting network traffic traffic, capturing emails and other sensitive business data.
Mr. Kaminsky immediately reported the issue to major authorities, including the United States Computer Emergency Response Team (part of the Department of Homeland Security), and began working on a coordinated fix. Engineers from major technology vendors around the world converged on the Microsoft campus in March to coordinate their response. All of the vendors began repairing their products and agreed that a synchronized release, on a single day, would minimize the risk that malicious individuals could figure out the vulnerability before all vendors were able to offer secure versions of their products. The vulnerability is a complex issue, and there is no evidence to suggest that anyone with malicious intent knows how it works.
Drupal time now! Summer of Code 2008 Mid-term Results wherein the Big G puts up some money to get the kiddos makin totally badass modules. Mostly these won't make a lot of sense to the outsiders among you, but they look good!
We are seeing a lot of these clever youngsters realizing that the 5.x modules were too specific, and it would be much better to write plugin module frameworks so that the redundant stuff can be minimized. So now fancy feature areas like Geographic bookmarking/plotting and WYSIWYG editors, two messy areas, would be streamlined as these projects mature.
Sometimes we wonder how to assemble an F35 stealth fighter. But then we find out! Via here and here and Cryptome!
On a related note, they have the official shit list of the government! US Foreign Enemies List is impressive - all the individuals in the PLO, Kahanists, the very bad al-Tikriti family in Iraq...
I have to deal a lot with Drupal, which is the content management system that runs this site, my day job and some side projects. I am trying to get a new site set up for a friend of mine on Drupal 6, but there have been quite a few bugs along the way.
The thing about Drupal development is that many of the key parts are based in add-on modules, rather than the core program. Drupal 6 is a really strong improvement over Drupal 5 in most areas, but the modules have taken darn near forever to get solidified.
(And of course everyone ought to chip in - the more everyone helps, the less time it takes. The community as a whole is very amiable, and it seems to me this pokiness is certainly not due to lack of effort or infighting - just the complexity of the task at hand.)
Fortunately the real key elements are finally beyond beta, now at Release Candidate (RC) level. These combined modules, Organic Groups, CCK and Views, are basically teh building blocks from which many other developments can spawn. It'll be easier now to write more modules and themes that extend these big foundations... Nice.
Unfortunately they also rely on some big fixes that are due to be included in Drupal 6.3, which has not quite been released. Better be this week!!! Yarghs.
In many ways, this post below introduces the whole shebang:
Thanks to all these developers - it's a huge task. I have been at least checking into the twin cities drupal group from time to time, and they are also very cool and helpful. However, they are quite reluctant to tangle with Drupal 6 because it has taken quite a few months to get to this point!
Finally, the Views team has a desperate call out for documentation help - which i agree is much needed!
Yeh I have been up around with the sniffles all week. Finally today the ol' sinus passages cleared out and I feel good once more. This was an interesting week, as on Monday I met the one and only Dries Buytaert, the guy who invented Drupal back in college. (The Drupal team is at the U of M to do badass User Interface research). That was the same day as the Veto Override of the Transportation bill, which included a ban on privatizing the road systems of Minnesota.
I suspect that the ban may have been related to the work I did exposing the NAFTA Superhighway plan for MN back in December, which apparently got picked up by the DFL Capitol staff. have to follow up on that.
So yeah, today is the first in quite a few days where I don't feel totally gunked or garbled. Not bad for a Friday!!!
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A comparative analysis of dream images suggests how deeply the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks impacted Americans' emotions, researchers report.
Everyone experienced some sort of trauma, or at least emotional arousal by these events, Dr. Ernest Hartmann told Reuters Health. "We found, surprisingly, even dreams could pick this up," said Hartmann, of Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, Massachusetts.
Hartmann and colleagues assessed the dreams of 11 men and 33 women living outside of Manhattan when the attacks occurred. The participants, who ranged in age from 22 to 70 years, had been recording their dreams for years, and none had relatives or friends who died in the attacks, the investigators note in the journal Sleep.
According to the results, post-9/11 dreams showed more intense images, which is "very consistent with findings in people who have experienced trauma of various kinds," Hartmann said in a statement. "The idea is that that we all experienced at least some trauma on 9/11."
The dreams after 9/11, however, did not contain more images of airplanes or tall buildings. Actually, none of the recorded dreams involved airplanes flying into towers or anything remotely close to that, even though all subjects had seen these images on TV. Hartmann suggests this is because a dream is a creation, not a replay. Dreams make new connections that integrate new material into existing memory, he said. [more on it]
I am cooped up with a cold. I have very little productive to do right now, it's Saturday and I am fidgety. Therefore it is time to listen to some techno and post links like a good little February recluse.
How the spooks took over the news: In his controversial new book, Nick Davies argues that shadowy intelligence agencies are pumping out black propaganda to manipulate public opinion – and that the media simply swallow it wholesale, Monday, 11 February 2008
On the morning of 9 February 2004, The New York Times carried an exclusive and alarming story. The paper's Baghdad correspondent, Dexter Filkins, reported that US officials had obtained a 17-page letter, believed to have been written by the notorious terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi to the "inner circle" of al-Qa'ida's leadership, urging them to accept that the best way to beat US forces in Iraq was effectively to start a civil war.
The letter argued that al-Qa'ida, which is a Sunni network, should attack the Shia population of Iraq: "It is the only way to prolong the duration of the fight between the infidels and us. If we succeed in dragging them into a sectarian war, this will awaken the sleepy Sunnis."......
...There is very good reason to believe that that letter was a fake – and a significant one because there is equally good reason to believe that it was one product among many from a new machinery of propaganda which has been created by the United States and its allies since the terrorist attacks of September 2001.
For the first time in human history, there is a concerted strategy to manipulate global perception. And the mass media are operating as its compliant assistants, failing both to resist it and to expose it.
The sheer ease with which this machinery has been able to do its work reflects a creeping structural weakness which now afflicts the production of our news. I've spent the last two years researching a book about falsehood, distortion and propaganda in the global media.
The "Zarqawi letter" which made it on to the front page of The New York Times in February 2004 was one of a sequence of highly suspect documents which were said to have been written either by or to Zarqawi and which were fed into news media.
This material is being generated, in part, by intelligence agencies who continue to work without effective oversight; and also by a new and essentially benign structure of "strategic communications" which was originally designed by doves in the Pentagon and Nato who wanted to use subtle and non-violent tactics to deal with Islamist terrorism but whose efforts are poorly regulated and badly supervised with the result that some of its practitioners are breaking loose and engaging in the black arts of propaganda.
.......Some of this comes from freelance political agitators. It was an Iranian opposition group, for example, which was behind the story that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was jailing people for texting each other jokes about him. And notoriously it was Iraqi exiles who supplied the global media with a dirty stream of disinformation about Saddam Hussein.
But clearly a great deal of this carries the fingerprints of officialdom. The Pentagon has now designated "information operations" as its fifth "core competency" alongside land, sea, air and special forces. Since October 2006, every brigade, division and corps in the US military has had its own "psyop" element producing output for local media. This military activity is linked to the State Department's campaign of "public diplomacy" which includes funding radio stations and news websites. In Britain, the Directorate of Targeting and Information Operations in the Ministry of Defence works with specialists from 15 UK psyops, based at the Defence Intelligence and Security School at Chicksands in Bedfordshire.
Since 9/11, and seemingly without the notice of most Americans, the federal government has assumed the authority to institute martial law, arrest a wide swath of dissidents (citizen and noncitizen alike), and detain people without legal or constitutional recourse in the event of "an emergency influx of immigrants in the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs."
Beginning in 1999, the government has entered into a series of single-bid contracts with Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) to build detention camps at undisclosed locations within the United States. The government has also contracted with several companies to build thousands of railcars, some reportedly equipped with shackles, ostensibly to transport detainees.
According to diplomat and author Peter Dale Scott, the KBR contract is part of a Homeland Security plan titled ENDGAME, which sets as its goal the removal of "all removable aliens" and "potential terrorists."
Fraud-busters such as Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, have complained about these contracts, saying that more taxpayer dollars should not go to taxpayer-gouging Halliburton. But the real question is: What kind of "new programs" require the construction and refurbishment of detention facilities in nearly every state of the union with the capacity to house perhaps millions of people?
Sect. 1042 of the 2007 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), "Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies," gives the executive the power to invoke martial law. For the first time in more than a century, the president is now authorized to use the military in response to "a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, a terrorist attack or any other condition in which the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to the extent that state officials cannot maintain public order."
The Military Commissions Act of 2006, rammed through Congress just before the 2006 midterm elections, allows for the indefinite imprisonment of anyone who donates money to a charity that turns up on a list of "terrorist" organizations, or who speaks out against the government's policies. The law calls for secret trials for citizens and noncitizens alike.
Also in 2007, the White House quietly issued National Security Presidential Directive 51 (NSPD-51), to ensure "continuity of government" in the event of what the document vaguely calls a "catastrophic emergency." Should the president determine that such an emergency has occurred, he and he alone is empowered to do whatever he deems necessary to ensure "continuity of government." This could include everything from canceling elections to suspending the Constitution to launching a nuclear attack. Congress has yet to hold a single hearing on NSPD-51.
U.S. Rep. Jane Harman, D-Venice (Los Angeles County) has come up with a new way to expand the domestic "war on terror." Her Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 (HR1955), which passed the House by the lopsided vote of 404-6, would set up a commission to "examine and report upon the facts and causes" of so-called violent radicalism and extremist ideology, then make legislative recommendations on combatting it.
According to commentary in the Baltimore Sun, Rep. Harman and her colleagues from both sides of the aisle believe the country faces a native brand of terrorism, and needs a commission with sweeping investigative power to combat it.
A clue as to where Harman's commission might be aiming is the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, a law that labels those who "engage in sit-ins, civil disobedience, trespass, or any other crime in the name of animal rights" as terrorists. Other groups in the crosshairs could be anti-abortion protesters, anti-tax agitators, immigration activists, environmentalists, peace demonstrators, Second Amendment rights supporters ... the list goes on and on. According to author Naomi Wolf, the National Counterterrorism Center holds the names of roughly 775,000 "terror suspects" with the number increasing by 20,000 per month.
What could the government be contemplating that leads it to make contingency plans to detain without recourse millions of its own citizens?
The Constitution does not allow the executive to have unchecked power under any circumstances. The people must not allow the president to use the war on terrorism to rule by fear instead of by law......
The intelligence community has begun contemplating how to use Second Life and other such communities as platforms for cyber weapons that could be used against terrorists or enemies, intelligence officials said.
There is some kind of thing getting floated about the Obama/Rashid Khalidi connection. This is goofy stuff, but there is some rightwing stuff along these lines, @ NRO , Commentary (the arch-retreat of grouches). More from Larry Johnson, whom I disagreed with (see comments)
Welcome to free Kosovo and its American Military Masters! I got linked off a blog in Portugal run by one Antonia Maria Cerveira Pinto O António Maria. Pretty awesome. He was noting how Kosovo is dominated by the U.S., and here is teh gigantic and very geopolitically key Camp Bondsteel.
Recent comments
8 hours 10 min ago
1 day 7 hours ago
4 days 15 hours ago
4 days 17 hours ago
6 days 4 hours ago
1 week 3 days ago
2 weeks 1 day ago
2 weeks 1 day ago
2 weeks 1 day ago
3 weeks 5 days ago