external short-term memory 3-17-06

AI, Inner-Life, and the Multiplayer World

Capragas Syndrome

Technology, Language, and Imagining Tomorrow

Human Genome Still Evolving

Quantum information can be Negative

A Republican could be listening to you right now

If that title didn't scare you, maybe the recent events in the ongoing wiretap scandle will. Senate Republicans have been trying to set up oversight for the NSA's domestic surveillance program, which was already little in the way of restrictions, and along the way, decided that long-term wiretapping on Americans without a court warrant was a nifty idea.

(from the New York Times article)

Civil liberties advocates called the proposed oversight inadequate and the licensing of eavesdropping without warrants unnecessary and unwise. But the Republican senators who drafted the proposal said it represented a hard-wrung compromise with the White House, which strongly opposed any Congressional interference in the eavesdropping program.

external short-term memory 3-11-06

The Grim, Meathook Future

For the Women of South Dakota: An Abortion Manual

The Structure of God's Mind

Propulsion Research Goes Into Hyperdrive

Dark Energy & Dark Matter potentially explained

It's nice to see that the short term memory still has no real rhyme or reason.

Z-Machine hotter then the inside of stars

This device pumps out more heat then the interior of suns. With further research, the Z-Machine will allow us have smaller, less expensive nuclear fusion plants that pump out just as much energy as the larger nuclear fusion plants. Science is fascinating, yes, but I've mostly just posted this because the Z-Machine is the best name for a scientific device ever. It also looks very slick.



(link to the Z-MACHINE article)

Don't forget your umbrella

It's a weird time to be in India. A while back, a peculiar, red rain fell on western district of Kerala, raising a general red-hued ruckus. Investigations into the dark pink torrent had...odd results.

(from the Observer article)

Investigations suggested the rain was red because winds had swept up dust from Arabia and dumped it on Kerala. But Godfrey Louis, a physicist at Mahatma Gandhi University in Kottayam, after gathering samples left over from the rains, concluded this was nonsense. 'If you look at these particles under a microscope, you can see they are not dust, they have a clear biological appearance.' Instead Louis decided that the rain was made up of bacteria-like material that had been swept to Earth from a passing comet. In short, it rained aliens over India during the summer of 2001.

Human Sacrifices for Kali

Poverty, economic stagnation, illiteracy, superstition, and a hearty helping of sociopathia in India lead to a series of brutal ritualistic murders.

(from the Observer article)

Sumitra Bushan, 43, who lived in Barha for most of her life, certainly thought she was cursed. Her husband had long abandoned her, leaving her with debts and a life of servitude in the sugarcane fields. Her sons, Satbir, 27, and Sanjay, 23, were regarded as layabouts. Life was bad but then the nightmares and terrifying visions of Kali allegedly began, not just for Sumitra but her entire family.

She consulted a tantrik, a travelling 'holy man' who came to the village occasionally, dispensing advice and putrid medicines from the rusty amulets around his neck.

His guidance to Sumitra was to slaughter a chicken at the entrance to her home and offer the blood and remains to the goddess. She did so but the nightmares continued and she began waking up screaming in the heat of the night and returned to the priest. 'For the sake of your family,' he told her, 'you must sacrifice another, a boy from your village.'

War on Truth

What do you do when reporters keep telling people about the underhanded, illegal things you do? President Bush has a good idea.

(from the capitol hill blue article)

Bush recently directed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to use "whatever means at your disposal" to wiretap, follow, harass and investigate journalists who have published stories about the administration's illegal use of warrantless wiretaps, use of faulty intelligence and anything else he deems "detrimental to the war on terror."

Miscellaneous 3-06-06

Art Portfolios and E-Magazines

Benares, by Harri Kallio




The Ten Commandments of Simon, by Derek Kirk Kim


Questionable Content, by J. Jacques




contaminated cinema

Depleted Uranium Hazard Awareness training video, link

Between October and December 1995, the U.S. Army's Depleted Uranium (DU) Project completed a series of training videos and manuals about depleted uranium munitions. This training regimen was developed as the result of recommendations made in the January 1993 General Accounting Office (GAO) report, "Army Not Adequately Prepared to Deal with Depleted Uranium Contamination."

(direct download)


Pee Pee, link

I want to describe this, but the best I could come up with is Care Bears on a bad acid trip.

Enough deep thoughts and disturbing-ness. Here's a cat hitting a hammer.


Blackflag-related Bittorrent

Henry Rollins goes to London

link
.avi| 898.12 MB
isoHunt

New Fay Vo Rite Website

Married to the Sea

I love Toothpaste for Dinner, so I'm looking forward to the new online comic by the author, Drew.

The Country Club-ization of America

As posted earlier, Homeland Security is paying a Halliburton Subsidary to built internment camps for all removable aliens, potential terrorists, and if we're being honest with ourselves around here, anyone the Administration doesn't like.

Olly North seems to think it's a good idea. It also seems to be a part of a longer spanning plan by the Govt' to get rid of everyone that they aren't fond of. They call it 'ENDGAME', apparently.

from the Pacific News Service article:

It is relevant that in 2002, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced his desire to see camps for U.S. citizens deemed to be "enemy combatants." On Feb. 17 of this year, in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld spoke of the harm being done to the country's security, not just by the enemy, but also by what he called "news informers" who needed to be combated in "a contest of wills." Two days earlier, citing speeches critical of Bush by Al Gore, John Kerry, and Howard Dean, conservative columnist Ben Shapiro called for "legislation to prosecute such sedition."

We'll give them frickin' laser beams next

Just what is the Petnagon up to in the ocean nowadays? It's perfectly understandable to have some odd machinery on hand, but some of this stuff is downright Frankensteinian. Then comes an idea surely inspired by Dr. Evil from Austen Powers...

from the Science Daily article:

In the United States a team funded by the military has created a neural probe that can manipulate a shark’s brain signals or decode them. More controversially, the Pentagon hopes to use remote-controlled sharks as spies.

The neural implant is designed to enable a shark's brain signals to be manipulated remotely, controlling the animal's movemens, and perhaps even decoding what it is feeling.

"It's scary how easily someone in Homeland Security can get permission to spy."

Walter Soehnge, a retired Texas schoolteacher, and his wife, Deana Soehnge were investigated by Homeland Security for paying a $6,522 credit card debt.

Apparently, paying for a bit more then usual is considered suspicious, at which point, they have to call Homeland Security. Just in case, you know, Osama has something to do with it. Terrorists have great credit rating, it seems.

"If it can happen to me, it can happen to others," Walter said.

(scripps howard news service)

The Magical Kingdom Secret Service

If you're in the job market...

from the Defense Tech article:

Employer: The Walt Disney Company
Sector: Public
Type: Job
Status: Full-time
Location: Burbank, CA
Title: Intelligence Analyst

THE SITUATION: Basic Purpose and Objective of the Position: The Intelligence Analyst anticipates and assesses threats that could harm, or make vulnerable, The Walt Disney Company (TWDC), its employees, guests, or assets.

THE POSITION: The analyst thoroughly reviews information from open/public sources, official sources, and professional contacts, and conducts regular assessments of world events, regional/national security climates, and suspect individuals and groups. The analyst produces a range of written and verbal analyses for employees and management of the Company and provides tactical intelligence support to the Company's security and crisis management operators..."

Codename: Basketball

So your invasive anti-terrorism program is being shot down by lawmakers because people had a problem with the whole...total invasion of privacy and violation of rights thing. Do you clean out your desk and get a job with Disney?

No, you change the name of the program (something innocous...), and pick up right where you left off: Nose deep in people's personal information.

from the National Journal article:

Research under the Defense Department's Total Information Awareness program -- which developed technologies to predict terrorist attacks by mining government databases and the personal records of people in the United States -- was moved from the Pentagon's research-and-development agency to another group, which builds technologies primarily for the National Security Agency, according to documents obtained by National Journal and to intelligence sources familiar with the move. The names of key projects were changed, apparently to conceal their identities, but their funding remained intact, often under the same contracts.

It is no secret that some parts of TIA lived on behind the veil of the classified intelligence budget. However, the projects that moved, their new code names, and the agencies that took them over haven't previously been disclosed. Sources aware of the transfers declined to speak on the record for this story because, they said, the identities of the specific programs are classified.

Miscellaneous 3-01-06

Books for those without money

Manifesto for Networked Objects | Julian Bleecker

mind-bending moving images

You will beleive that Google Video can be used for LSD and Aliens!

Alien Dimensions, featuring Terrence McKenna and Mark Pesce, explores the concept of the Alien and the Psychedelic Shaman and shamanism in modern culture.

(google video stream)

How To Operate Your Brain, with Timothy Leary, gives a mind-reprogramming for dummies lesson.

(google video stream)

Who's Out There? A 1975 film that discusses the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligent civilizations out in the universe.

(google video stream)

Taking LSD, a documentary which is essentially lysergic acid diethylamide use for dummies.

(google video stream)

Life Beyond Earth and the Mind of Man, another '75 film, featuring Dr. Richard Berendzen, astronomy professor and historian of science at Boston University; Dr. Ashley Montagu, anthropologist, social biologist and author at Rutgers University; Dr. Philip Morrison, physicist educator and philosopher of science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Dr. Carl Sagan, astronomer and exobiologist at Cornell University; Dr. Krister Stendahl, clergyman and theologian at Harvard University; and Dr. George Wald, biologist at Harvard University, all of whom get thoughtful on the possibility of Extraterrestrial Life.

(google video stream)

Recommended Downloading

Bill Hicks-The Lost Hour

things that've been on my mind lately

Professor McCoy exposes the History of CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror

Professor Alfred McCoy talks about his book "A Question of Torture", a startling expose of the CIA development of psychological torture from the Cold War to Abu Ghraib.

Rumsfeld's Star Wars

the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, a small office in Maine, is being spied on. Why?

It may have something to do with the Pentagon is showing interest in putting space-based weaponry into orbit.

It's not that far fetched of an idea. The DoD published a report called Joint Vision 2020 (pts 1 & 2), stating that they sought Full Spectrum Dominance, be it on sea, land, air, or space.

from the Wired article:

"While our ultimate goals are truly to 'exploit' space through space force enhancement and space force application missions, as with other mediums, we cannot fully 'exploit' that medium until we first 'control' it," said U.S. Space Command in the recent Strategic Master Plan FY06 and Beyond.

Combine that with an already existent plan to control the Internet, and the United States has just officially declared war on just about everything that exists.

Fashion for the legally questionable

'Suspect' Coat
Originally uploaded by troy_doney.

I definitely want one of these.

Washable, water resistant, windproof nylon shell, jersey lined body with mesh lined sleeves, snap front, slash pockets, elastic at cuffs and drawstring at bottom. Sizes M-XL. $35, plus shipping.

Linky