HongPong's blog

First Amendment issue of our Time; Google & Verizon deal putting Net Neutrality & my industry on the chopping block. Franken, Ellison, Klobuchar: What's going on?

Submitted by HongPong on Sat, 2010-08-07 00:30

Currently the Internets, at the lowest level, is a freeway. That is, when I want to get traffic from site A B or C, there is no corporate toll structure slowing my traffic down. But obviously, the owners of the telecom pipes, and increasingly the bigger, more monopolistic and oligopoly-friendly players, want to slow down traffic against their competitors and independent players.

After news emerged this week that Google and Verizon are planning to cut a deal to privilege tiers of corporate-related Internet traffic at the expense of everyone else, (Google denies it in a suspiciously surly fashion) a wave of concern ricocheted around Internets that the end of Net Neutrality might have finally arrived.

I heartily agree with FreePress.net's urgency on the matter, and sent a Freepress petition with my own remarks into my elected officials. So far a Sen. Franken emailbot sent me a receipt, but nothing at all from Sen. Klobuchar. Rep. Ellison's office sent a quick receipt and now a reasonable enough response.

Another dimension of this battle involves the venue of regulation: the FCC could theoretically implement a "good" rule through its administrative process, and/or through Congress. Apparently FreePress trusts the FCC more than Congress right now, and it's certainly true that the telecom industry pretty much has effective control of Congress. Thus, HR 3458, as advocated by Rep. Ellison, is a risky strategy. Rep. Alan Grayson, darling of progressives and fiscal hawks for his challenges to the Federal Reserve, has let em down by backing away from the FCC approach (as well as expressing the usual AIPAC-friendly foreign policy stance).

Franken, saying it's the First Amendment issue of our time, has gone well out of his way to raise attention about Net Neutrality, most recently at the Netroots conference on July 24th. I got a basic answer from Ellison which seems reasonable enough for now.

With that in mind I sent this in via the FreePress.net wizardry, and I encourage you to send one too. This issue cuts across all political orientations, leaving only the Oblivious, Astroturfoids and Fans of Corporate Authoritarians against it. We all deserve to be bored by DailyKos and RedState content alike, at the same speed.

******

I am terrified that large corporate lobbies and the establishment in general are systematically trying to destroy the free Internet, and shut down and impede as many non-corporate sources of information as possible. Also, the recent deletion of 70,000+ blogs because of an apparently fake Al Qaeda magazine, due to some strange process by fiat of the Department of Homeland Security, is deeply troubling and lacks any due process. (Do you really think Al Qaeda suggests its supporters contact them over GMail, as the magazine states? How dumb is that?!)

The recent work by pro-lockdown legislators to narrow a needed proposed shield law, to exclude websites like Wikileaks, is also appalling and totally at odds with all the principles that have made our country economically viable, as well as a genuine marketplace of ideas. Responsibility for violating overgrown and corrupt secrecy rules falls not with websites, but with whoever violates their oath not to propagate sensitive information. I am disgusted that newspaper lobbyists are working to suppress protection for excellent websites like Cryptome.org that actually shed sunlight on the staggeringly vast wastes of Top Secret America.

The effort to destroy Net Neutrality and replace Internet service priority rules with cartel structures and deals will surely damage the US economy deeply, and give corporate fatcats the upper hand yet again to squelch the new avenues of information rapidly making them obsolete. This week it was reported Verizon and Google are nearing a deal to destroy Net Neutrality on Google-powered Verizon devices, and this kind of arrangement is fundamentally no different than Rockefeller, Carnegie, Standard Oil and other inefficient monopolist systems of previous eras. We will never get out of this deep economic collapse if legislation protecting fatcats is the only work product from Washington DC.

I work as a Web developer, developing sites for many people. The agenda against Net Neutrality is most directly an agenda against my clients, who deserve to make their sites available on equitable network standards. This is nothing more than cartels versus independent producers. How can my industry remain viable, let alone vibrant, if Net Neutrality gets destroyed by politicians and corporate lobbyists?

I agree with everything added below by FreePress.net:
Net Neutrality is the cornerstone of innovation, free speech and democracy on the Internet.

More than 1.9 million Americans have expressed support for Net Neutrality at Congress and the FCC. They want control over the Internet to remain in the hands of the people who use it every day.

Please stand with the public by protecting Net Neutrality once and for all.

******

Rep. Ellison's response:

August 6, 2010

Dear Daniel,

Thank you for contacting me about H.R. 3458, the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009 and net neutrality. I am honored to hear from you and proud to represent you in the United States Congress.

The Internet has become an integral part of our everyday lives. We utilize it daily for communications, commerce, business, education and research. I believe we must ensure that Internet access is universal and open to all lawful content and information. I share your sentiments regarding Internet freedom and further, I consider freedom to access the Internet on par with American rights to free press.

As you may know, there is increasing concern that the owners of the local broadband connections may block or discriminate against certain Internet users or applications in order to give an advantage to their own services. While owners of local networks have a legitimate right to manage traffic on their network to prevent congestion and viruses, they should not be able to block or degrade traffic based on the identity of the user or the type of application solely to favor their own interests. Like you, I am concerned that the ability of network providers to prioritize Internet traffic may give them too much power over the operation of, and access to, the Internet.

Currently, the Internet Freedom Preservation Act (H.R. 3458) is under consideration by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. While I do not serve on this Committee, please know that I will be certain to keep your views in mind as H.R. 3458 moves through the legislative process, and ultimately to the House floor for a vote.

As always, please feel free to contact me on this or any issue of concern. Sign up for our e-newsletter by visiting www.ellison.house.gov.

Sincerely,

Keith Ellison
United States House of Representatives

Carbon Market+Sun=FAIL? Sunspot Maunder Minimum vs. 'global warming,' bad for Alliance for Climate Protection 'mass persuasion exercise': How about dem sunspots??!

Submitted by HongPong on Fri, 2009-09-04 23:52

Another Little Ice Age? Solar activity and climate change - Ars Technica:

Some scientists are suggesting that the slow return to a more active phase of the solar cycle may portend a general decline in solar activity. If sunspots shut down, does that mean that we could stop worrying about climate change?

Over the weekend, a paper published in the American Geophysical Union's journal Eos attracted a lot of attention, as it suggested that the levels of magnetic activity associated with recent sunspots indicated that the sun might be returning to a state of low activity, similar to that of the Maunder Minimum, which occurred in the late 17th century. That change in solar activity was notable for setting off what's called the Little Ice Age, which plunged Europe into a deep chill. Left undiscussed is what that might mean in a world where greenhouse gas changes are threatening a period of extended high temperatures.

To understand how a significant change in sunspot levels might be felt in the Earth's climate, we'll back up and look at how sunspots relate to solar output, how that output gets felt on Earth, and how it interacts with changing levels of greenhouse gasses. The answer appears to be that it could reverse the climate change that occurred during past century, but would only delay the changes expected by the end of this century.

And the grand weather guy of Minnesota, Paul Douglas, weighs in with a reference: MinnPost - Paul Douglas: Picture postcard perfect:

Maybe it's because summer was so amazing. Yes, it was a couple degrees cooler than average (I blame the damn sunspots, or lack thereof) but we still had a blast.

Douglas goes on to restate that he's big on climate change, but the reference stands. A worthy question: Are climate change deniers like creationists? | The Agonist. Couldn't resist, I proceed to rattle teh cage on the thread:

At the risk of getting in trouble, has anyone had a cold summer? We sure have here. Some people are saying that the roughly 11-year sunspot cycle is becoming much quieter than usual.
While atmospheric CO2 measurement is a recent development (altho of course we can get ice cores for now), sunspot observation has been going on for centuries. Interestingly, the Little Ice Age corresponded to a period of very low sunspot activity, with the Hudson River in NY/NJ and the Thames freezing over for extended periods. (Some other people theorize that it was because an oceanic current loop halted for a while.)
Anyway it seems to me that CO2 is a coefficient for trapping heat. OK. It is not as effective by weight as many other pollutants/components of the atmosphere but it certainly has an effect.
However there are basically three thermal inputs to the whole system. One is the level of solar energy and the other would be whatever geothermal heat bleeds out of the earth's core. (a moderate amount but whatever steam you see coming off a hot spring is part of this). The third would be the heat generated by civilization itself. (not the CO2)
Sooo... if it's true that the sunspots and thermal-type solar energy are linked, then that would seem to be a way bigger deal to the whole system than the CO2 level. People were wigging out about global cooling in the '70s and also proposing overarching powerful political structures to react to the problem.

If people were presented a clear mathematical model considering the sunspot & solar side as well as the atmospheric coefficients then that seems like it would be more intellectually honest than the current PR campaign which seems to be a policy agenda oriented exclusively around carbon.
Check out this lil gem from the Internet Wayback Machine on the Alliance for Climate Protection site: (It's been deleted for some time, but I found it awesome when I spotted it originally):

Our Mission

Americans have always risen to meet the most important challenges to our nation’s and the world’s future. Our mission is to persuade the American people — and people elsewhere in the world – of the importance and urgency of adopting and implementing effective and comprehensive solutions for the climate crisis. The Alliance for Climate Protection is undertaking an unprecedented mass persuasion exercise based on scientific facts.

Through a new combination of non-partisan alliances with Americans from all walks of life and innovative and far-reaching communication techniques the Alliance will focus on presenting the facts about climate change and its solutions to the general public in an accurate, clear and compelling manner.

Americans have always risen to meet the most important challenges to our nation’s and the world’s future. Together, we can address the climate challenge domestically and provide a robust economy for now and for our children.

Say what you will about Darwin, he didn't have a bunch of PR flacks doing an 'unprecedented mass persuasion exercise,' which frankly is Rendon Group-style jargon.
And also I don't see how you can measure carbon I/O on farms -- it would take a whole staff of Goldman Sachs minions to figure out how much to pay for one farm, which appears to be precisely the whole idea of 'carbon trading.'
Matt Taibbi nailed how the almighty Carbon Market is going to Suck: The Great American Bubble Machine : Rolling Stone

And instead of credit derivatives or oil futures or mortgage-backed CDOs, the new game in town, the next bubble, is in carbon credits — a booming trillion dollar market that barely even exists yet, but will if the Democratic Party that it gave $4,452,585 to in the last election manages to push into existence a groundbreaking new commodities bubble, disguised as an "environmental plan," called cap-and-trade.

The new carboncredit market is a virtual repeat of the commodities-market casino that's been kind to Goldman, except it has one delicious new wrinkle: If the plan goes forward as expected, the rise in prices will be government-mandated. Goldman won't even have to rig the game. It will be rigged in advance.

...... The feature of this plan that has special appeal to speculators is that the "cap" on carbon will be continually lowered by the government, which means that carbon credits will become more and more scarce with each passing year. Which means that this is a brand new commodities market where the main commodity to be traded is guaranteed to rise in price over time. The volume of this new market will be upwards of a trillion dollars annually; for comparison's sake, the annual combined revenues of all electricity suppliers in the U.S. total $320 billion.

Goldman wants this bill. The plan is (1) to get in on the ground floor of paradigmshifting legislation, (2) make sure that they're the profitmaking slice of that paradigm and (3) make sure the slice is a big slice. Goldman started pushing hard for cap and trade long ago, but things really ramped up last year when the firm spent $3.5 million to lobby climate issues.

......[Buying into renewables...] is convenient, considering that Goldman made early investments in wind power (it bought a subsidiary called Horizon Wind Energy), renewable diesel (it is an investor in a firm called Changing World Technologies) and solar power (it partnered with BP Solar), exactly the kind of deals that will prosper if the government forces energy producers to use cleaner energy. As Paulson said at the time, "We're not making those investments to lose money."

The bank owns a 10 percent stake in the Chicago Climate Exchange, where the carbon credits will be traded. Moreover, Goldman owns a minority stake in Blue Source LLC, a Utahbased firm that sells carbon credits of the type that will be in great demand if the bill passes. Nobel Prize winner Al Gore, who is intimately involved with the planning of cap-and-trade, started up a company called Generation Investment Management with three former bigwigs from Goldman Sachs Asset Management, David Blood, Mark Ferguson and Peter Harris. Their business? Investing in carbon offsets. There's also a $500 million Green Growth Fund set up by a Goldmanite to invest in greentech … the list goes on and on. Goldman is ahead of the headlines again, just waiting for someone to make it rain in the right spot. Will this market be bigger than the energyfutures market?

"Oh, it'll dwarf it," says a former staffer on the House energy committee.

Well, you might say, who cares? If cap-and-trade succeeds, won't we all be saved from the catastrophe of global warming? Maybe — but cap and trade, as envisioned by Goldman, is really just a carbon tax structured so that private interests collect the revenues. Instead of simply imposing a fixed government levy on carbon pollution and forcing unclean energy producers to pay for the mess they make, cap-and-trade will allow a small tribe of greedy-as-hell Wall Street swine to turn yet another commodities market into a private taxcollection scheme. This is worse than the bailout: It allows the bank to seize taxpayer money before it's even collected.

"If it's going to be a tax, I would prefer that Washington set the tax and collect it," says Michael Masters, the hedge fund director who spoke out against oil futures speculation. "But we're saying that Wall Street can set the tax, and Wall Street can collect the tax. That's the last thing in the world I want. It's just asinine."

Cap-and-trade is going to happen. Or, if it doesn't, something like it will. The moral is the same as for all the other bubbles that Goldman helped create, from 1929 to 2009. In almost every case, the very same bank that behaved recklessly for years, weighing down the system with toxic loans and predatory debt, and accomplishing nothing but massive bonuses for a few bosses, has been rewarded with mountains of virtually free money and government guarantees — while the actual victims in this mess, ordinary taxpayers, are the ones paying for it.

Bill O'Reilly Flips Out — DANCE REMIX

Submitted by HongPong on Fri, 2008-05-16 01:30

YouTube - Bill O'Reilly Flips Out — DANCE REMIX

Sublime! FCC Warning: contains expletives used as a beat and/or rhythm

What can I say?!

Obama will change Democrats; Updates on Pentagon anti-Internet plans; military analyst PSYOPS campaign media coverup in progress!

Submitted by HongPong on Sun, 2008-05-11 03:49

How will Obama change the structure of the Democratic Party: is it progressive or autocratic? Etc??! Matt Stoller: Obama's Consolidation of the Party - Politics on The Huffington Post and The Obama Squeeze | The Agonist.

Meanwhile over @ No Quarter they are pretty grumpy b/c they've been in the Hillary camp for a dang long time: I Call a Spade a Spade : NO QUARTER

PSYOPS update: here's your raw data: John Stauber: Pentagon Propaganda Documents Go Online: But Will the Media Ever Report on Them?

Eight thousand pages of documents related to the Pentagon's illegal propaganda campaign, known as the Pentagon military analyst program, are now online for the world to see, although in a format that makes it impossible to easily search them and therefore difficult to read and dissect. This trove includes the documents pried out of the Pentagon by David Barstow and used as the basis for his stunning investigation that appeared in the New York Times on April 20, 2008.

The Pentagon program, which clearly violated US law against covert government propaganda, embedded more than 75 retired military officers -- most of them with financial ties to war contractors -- into the TV networks as "message surrogates" for the Bush Administration. To date, every major commercial TV network has failed to report this story, covering up their complicity and keeping the existence of this scandal from their audiences.

News of the Pentagon's online posting of the documents came from Joe Trento of the National Security News Service, who notes that NSNS provided the New York Times "limited information about a military office early in the reporting process."

Here is the official Pentagon website with the 8,000 pages of documents, the most interesting and revealing of them previously secret and only available to the Pentagon and the New York Times:

http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/milanalysts/

More than two weeks after the New York Times reported on the Penatgon's military analyst program to sell controversial policies such as the invasion of Iraq, the broadcast television news outlets implicated in the program are hoping to tough out the scandal by refusing to report it. Recently Media Matters of America (MMA) reported that, according to a search of the Nexis database, "the three major broadcast networks -- ABC, CBS, and NBC -- have still not mentioned the report at all."

Keep running the airtight ship, guys!

Meanwhile, General Electric didn't have a dog in that media game, did they? Hmmm.... The Raw Story | Chris Matthews: MSNBC bosses were 'basically pro-war'

As previously noted on this website, the Pentagon has had an extensive agenda to manipulate mainstream media in order to promote the war, via PSYOPS strategies that make the American population a "strategic" target for brain spoofing. Controlling elite opinion and mass ideas has been the big picture, which is prety obvious. But actually reading all those strategic emails about how to spoof the news via 'military analysts' is another matter altogether.

This was reported in the New York Times and then obviously deleted from the A-story media agenda because it raises too many questions about news oversight and industry-wide management practices.

Meanwhile the paranoid thread digs parallel concerns: Pentagon Secretly Goes To War With The Internet with exciting new systems designed to help the powers that be do... something.

It is not a surprise: the Pentagon's ever-expanding system of total rationality would see the off-message resistance to the war agenda as a kind of distributed evil/terrorist network. Ensuring the primacy of war and top-down information control as the organizing principles of our 21st century society would be a primary goal. True? Probably, even if the various individual humans in the system can't actually see or understand this.

WIRED adds: What's Up with the Secret Cybersecurity Plans, Senators Ask DHS | Threat Level from Wired.com

Why might citizens be worried about privacy and civil liberties? Consider that the whole initiative appears to have been launched after the Director of National Intelligence told the President Bush that a cyber attack might wreak as much economic havoc as 9/11 did.

Consider that the NSA, which currently protects classified networks, wants to expand into protecting all non-classified federal government networks. Consider that Congress is set to legalize the NSA's monitoring rooms in the nation's phone and internet infrastructure.

For its part, the FBI says it also needs access to the internet's backbone, while the Air Force is hyping its own efforts at cyber defense and offense. Meanwhile, THREAT LEVEL's sister blog Danger Room reports that DARPA is getting in on the hot cyber-action, with a project to make a fake internet to develop new cyber attacks and defenses.

It's been said many times that if the government knew what the internet was going to become when it grew up, they would had never let it out of the lab.

Now it seems the only question is whether the government will be able to turn the net into a controllable, monitorable and trackable pre-internet AOL-type service or whether the chaotic net will live on as just another frontier for the military-industrial complex to start an arm's race and rake in billions of government dollars.

Meanwhile the paranoia side also blames the schemes of the Bilberberg Group for the gas pump disaster. I'd say, well, this kind of thing wouldn't surprise me anymore. Goldman Sachs: Bilderberg Target Of $200 Dollar Oil Nears.

And why not some more stuff: Military and Homeland Security Dictate Who Lives And Who Dies In A Pandemic

Rational Annihilation. Of ideas, sick old people, whatever. The ominous specters continue, and blog posts go up apace....

RNC Organizer: Doing Public Relations for Burma and the Republican National Convention = Teh Awkward

Submitted by HongPong on Sun, 2008-05-11 02:31

Pigs!

God Damn... pigs!

Potbelly... pigs!

Punch-drunk... pigs!

Take money, money... pigs!

Loudmouth... pigs!

Wide load... pigs!

Let's make a deal...

--Aesop Rock , "Coffee" from the excellent new album "None Shall Pass"


A delicious press release arrives:

image001.jpg STATEMENT

For Immediate Release

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Contact:

Matt Burns - 651-925-7208

mburns@gopconvention2008.com

GOP CONVENTION COORDINATOR RESIGNS

SAINT PAUL, Minn. -- The 2008 Republican National Convention today accepted the resignation of convention coordinator Doug Goodyear. Mr. Goodyear issued the following statement on his resignation:

“Today I offered the convention my resignation so as not to become a distraction in this campaign. I continue to strongly support John McCain for president, and wish him the best of luck in this campaign.”

###

image003.png

What ever could be the matter? Oh damn, their chief Convention Flack took a ton of cash to work promoting the Burmese junta in Washington.

Exactly like Duke's excellent work for Berzerkistan on Doonesbury:


db071016.gif

db071018.gif

I mean, exactly like Duke. $348,000 buys a lot of sleep, I bet.

Yeah, the chief RNC St. Paul organizer guy worked for that torture-insanity-what-the-hell Burmese military Dictatorship. Newsweek shook it loose!

McCain's Convention Chair Worked for Burma's Military Junta | Newsweek Periscope | Newsweek.com:

After John McCain nailed down the Republican nomination in March, his campaign began wrestling with a sensitive personnel issue: who would manage this summer's GOP convention in St. Paul, Minn.? The campaign recently tapped Doug Goodyear for the job, a veteran operative and Arizonan who was chosen for his "management experience and expertise," according to McCain press secretary Jill Hazelbaker. But some allies worry that Goodyear's selection could fuel perceptions that McCain—who has portrayed himself as a crusader against special interests—is surrounded by lobbyists. Goodyear is CEO of DCI Group, a consulting firm that earned $3 million last year lobbying for ExxonMobil, General Motors and other clients.

Potentially more problematic: the firm was paid $348,000 in 2002 to represent Burma's military junta, which had been strongly condemned by the State Department for its human-rights record and remains in power today. Justice Department lobbying records show DCI pushed to "begin a dialogue of political reconciliation" with the regime. It also led a PR campaign to burnish the junta's image, drafting releases praising Burma's efforts to curb the drug trade and denouncing "falsehoods" by the Bush administration that the regime engaged in rape and other abuses. "It was our only foreign representation, it was for a short tenure, and it was six years ago," Goodyear told NEWSWEEK, adding the junta's record in the current cyclone crisis is "reprehensible."

Another issue: DCI has been a pioneer in running "independent" expenditure campaigns by so–called 527 groups, precisely the kind of operations that McCain, in his battle for campaign-finance reform, has denounced. In 2004, the DCI Group led a pro-Bush 527 called Progress for America, which was later fined (along with several other 527s on both sides of the political divide) for violating federal election laws. Goodyear, however, says that DCI is "not in the 527 business anymore."

Ironically, Goodyear was chosen for the post after the McCain campaign nixed another candidate, Paul Manafort, who runs a lobbying firm with McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis. The prospect of choosing Manafort created anxiety in the campaign because of his long history of representing controversial foreign clients, including Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos. More recently, he served as chief political consultant to Viktor Yanukovich, the former Ukrainian prime minister who has been widely criticized for alleged corruption and for his close ties to Russia's Vladimir Putin—a potential embarrassment for McCain, who in 2007 called Putin a "totalitarian dictator." "The Ukrainian stuff was viewed as too much," says one McCain strategist, who asked not to be identified discussing the matter. Manafort did not return calls for comment.

Then: Stumper : McCain Convention Manager Resigns After NEWSWEEK Reveals Burma Ties

Andrew Romano

Around noon today, the powers-that-be at NEWSWEEK posted "A Convention Quandary" on our website. In the story, investigative ace Michael Isikoff reported that the man chosen by John McCain's presidential campaign to run this summer's GOP convention--Arizonan Doug Goodyear--was causing some headaches within the ranks. The problem? Goodyear is CEO ofDCI Group, a consulting firm that earned $3 million last year lobbying for ExxonMobil, General Motors and other clients--not the most convenient association for a candidate who's already struggling to reconcile his reputation as an anti-special interests crusader with the sizable number of lobbyists on his senior staff. Further complicating matters: Isikoff's revelation that DCI was paid $348,000 in 2002 to represent Burma's military junta, leading "a PR campaign to burnish the junta's image, drafting releases praising Burma's efforts to curb the drug trade and denouncing 'falsehoods' by the Bush administration that the regime engaged in rape and other abuses." Ouch.

Apparently, Goodyear agreed.

Shortly after 5:00 p.m. this afternoon, the Republican National Convention announced that it had accepted Goodyear's resignation, setting a new land speed record for shortest time lapsed between the "story breaks" and "ax falls" phases of a political scandal. "Today I offered the convention my resignation so as not to become a distraction in this campaign," said Goodyear in written statement. "I continue to strongly support John McCain for president, and wish him the best of luck in this campaign." Asked later by the Politico whether Team McCain had given him the boot, Goodyear said no. "My decision," he added. "[It was] unambiguously the right thing to do."

Nice.... Say what you will, who could possibly be more evil than a public relations strategist for an evil, corrupt Asian dictatorship?!


"The strategic target remains our population:" Some more tasty links: military industrial complex in America and in yr brains!

Submitted by HongPong on Thu, 2008-05-01 02:14

NY Times exposes the PSY OPS Pentagon campaign against your brain: (i should have posted this earlier!)

Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand

“The strategic target remains our population,” General Conway said. “We can lose people day in and day out, but they’re never going to beat our military. What they can and will do if they can is strip away our support. And you guys can help us not let that happen.”

The Nation on it: NYT Investigation Exposes Pentagon Pimps & Propaganda Operation

Horrible PSYOPS. justifies everything I have ever said about the PSYOPS and manipulating yr brains @ the Pentagon, in great detail with many grumpy ex-talking heads speaking out about how the Pentagon fabricated news and nursed sweetheart military industrial lobbyist relations . (Including Ken Allard, who always seemed extra awful to me)

Pentagon Conduits (from the Old Right)

Read this and freek out: A Pentagon's Who's Who of Your Life - by Nick Turse and Tom Engelhardt

If you buy it via this link, you'll support antiwar.com (which is more deserving than I): Amazon.com: The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives: Nick Turse: Books:

A mind-boggling investigation of the allpervasive, constantly morphing presence of the Pentagon in daily life—a real-world Matrix come alive Here is the new, hip, high-tech military-industrial complex—an omnipresent, hidden-in-plain-sight system of systems that penetrates all our lives.

From iPods to Starbucks to Oakley sunglasses, historian Nick Turse explores the Pentagon’s little-noticed contacts (and contracts) with the products and companies that now form the fabric of America. Turse investigates the remarkable range of military incursions into the civilian world: the Pentagon’s collaborations with Hollywood filmmakers; its outlandish schemes to weaponize the wild kingdom; its joint ventures with the World Wrestling Federation and NASCAR. He shows the inventive ways the military, desperate for new recruits, now targets children and young adults, tapping into the “culture of cool” by making “friends” on MySpace.

A striking vision of this brave new world of remote-controlled rats and super-soldiers who need no sleep, The Complex will change our understanding of the militarization of America. We are a long way from Eisenhower’s military-industrial complex: this is the essential book for understanding its twenty-first-century progeny.

People are talking shit about Douglas Feith again. He got fired from his sweet college prof gig, so it's a rough turn. Good times, once upon a time I had that shit cornered. Right Web | Profile | Douglas Feith

Dana Milbank - Iraq War Is Everyone Else's Fault, Feith Explains - washingtonpost.com

TPMCafe | Talking Points Memo | The Banality of Evil: What Would Hannah Arendt Say About Doug Feith?

The American Conservative » Israeli Spy Case Will Name More Spies

Sweet: ccMixter - Welcome to ccMixter. open source culture - creative commons!! featuring free music from the Beastie Boys and everyone else in the RemiX Generation!

FBI wants to move hunt for criminals into Internet backbone

Here is some more tasty stuff: cryptogon.com: The American Culture Bomb: Satire from the Onion and a Long Forgotten U.S. Army War College Essay

cryptogon.com » Archives » CBOT Resembles Carnival Act as Billion Dollar Black Box Operators Move In

Deadly Greed: The Role of Speculators in the Global Food Crisis - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News

SurvivalBlog.com it's time!!!

cryptogon.com » Archives » Raw Milk and Lifting the Veil that has Been Pulled Over Our Eyes

cryptogon.com » Archives » NATO Forces Supplied Food, Water and Arms to Taliban Forces in Southern Afghanistan

Three States Subjected To "Martial Law Sweeps" More fancy marketing for the Big Evil Machine!

Big oil to big wind: Texas veteran sets up $10bn clean energy project | Environment | The Guardian

FT.com / In depth - Rice traders hit by panic as prices surge

Aboriginal children 'injected with leprosy' | The Daily Telegraph

Hear the Six Best Minutes of Tim Robbins' Controversial NAB Speech - Advertising Age - News

Monsanto's Harvest of Fear: Politics & Power: vanityfair.com

Pure Fantasy: Colombia's Laptop Revelations- by Justin Raimondo More fake neocon intel from our South American rich cocaine trafficker friends! Classic!!

Mother Jones Exclusive: Cops and Former Secret Service Agents Ran Black Ops on Green Groups. Mercenary spies against lefties!!!

Dumb old Council on Foreign Relations: Globe With Multipolar Disorder in Need of Prozac Says Expert | The Agonist

I like the sound of this: Chalabi, RAND and the Iraq War

Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations (Event Video/Audio) | Berkman Center

Gin, Television, and Social Surplus - Here Comes Everybody

Rupert Murdoch's Black Ops hit squad: NDS Group Tried for Tech Sabotage - Portfolio.com

Software as a service: The next big thing | InfoWorld | Analysis | 2006-03-20 | By Eric Knorr

That's all for today, thanks for visiting!!

Iran, Israel, some exposed anti-Pentagon weapons espionage for antiwar purposes, preventing war escalation? Teh convoluted spy stuff

Submitted by HongPong on Thu, 2008-05-01 02:12

Antiwar.com Blog · Did Israelis Leak New Spy Info to Thwart War?

Things in the Middle East are always too thoroughly linked together, backwards, forwards, each way through the hall of mirrors. And it's going to be the traditional 'summer fightin' months' all around the region soon enough.

Deadlock in Afghanistan, Negotiations in Pakistan | The Agonist

There's a certain preamble of mega-spin going on right now. Hillary makes these weird statements about obliterating Iran, and McCain is chuckling all the way to the Big Red Button.

As usual, the rationality of the Baby Boomer generation drifts towards paranoia, incoherence, rage and infinite debt. Whether or not the American people get it together and block the Middle East mega-war from blowing up out of control seems to be the big question.

Iran gets blamed for killing American soldiers occupying Iraq. Not surprisingly, the guys selling this line never acknowledge that the arms market is quite a free market over in Iraq, with many busy arms dealers working all directions. And people are buying weapons that come from Iran. Is that some kind of surprise? "FREE MARKET WEAPONS FOR IRAQ: ALWAYS PLENTY OF DEALS!" That's a motto which the Iranians should try... Then remind everyone which country is importing the most weapons into Iraq, handing them over to parties unknown...

British dealers supply arms to Iran: The Observer

As you may have noticed, there has been a lot of extra buzz about possible American conflict with Iran in the news (after cooling for a couple months prior).

Is War With Iran Imminent?- by Justin Raimondo

A couple weeks ago, the story from last fall about the mysterious Israeli bombing of a purported nuclear-or-something site in Syria came back strong into the news: exciting tidbits that the North Koreans were propagating some nuclear research at the Syrian location. Very exciting stuff for the news.

For example, Stratfor.com is all over this case and its exciting murkiness:

What is important to note is this information is not new. It is a confirmation of the story leaked by the administration shortly after the attack and also leaked by the Israelis a bit later. The explanation for the attack was that it was designed to take out a reactor in Syria that had been built with North Korean help. There are therefore three questions. First, why did the United States go to such lengths to reveal what it has been saying privately for months? Second, why did the administration do it now? Third, why is the United States explaining an Israeli raid using, at least in part, material provided by Israel? Why isn’t Israel making the revelation?

It has never been clear to us why the Israelis and Americans didn’t immediately announce that the Syrians were building a nuclear reactor. Given American hostility toward Syria over support for jihadists in Iraq, we would have thought that they would have announced it instantly. The explanation we thought most plausible at the time was that the intelligence came from the North Koreans in the course of discussions of their nuclear technology, and since the North Koreans were cooperating, the United States didn’t want to publicly embarrass them. It was the best we could come up with.

The announcement on Thursday seems to debunk that theory, at least to the extent that the primary material displayed was U.S. satellite information and the Israeli video, which was said to have been used to convince the United States of the existence of the reactor and of North Korean involvement. So why didn’t the administration condemn Syria and North Korea on Sept. 7? It still seems to us that part of the explanation is in the state of talks with North Korea over its own program. The North Koreans had said that they would provide technical information on their program — which they haven’t done. Either the United States lost its motivation to protect North Korean feelings because of this or the Bush administration felt that Thursday’s briefings would somehow bring pressure to bear on North Korea. Unless the United States is planning to use these revelations as justification for attacks on the North Koreans, we find it difficult to see how this increases pressure on them.

More interesting is the question of why the United States — and not Israel — is briefing on an Israeli raid. Israeli media reported April 23 that the Israelis had asked the Americans not to brief Congress. The reason given was that the Israelis did not want the United States to embarrass Syria at this point. As we noted on April 23, there appeared to have been some interesting diplomatic moves between Syria and Israel, and it made sense that revealing this information now might increase friction.

Meanwhile another more original story got lost in the sea of buzz: some old defense engineer, 84-year-old Ben-Ami Kadish, got caught by the FBI stealing secret documents from his top secret research lab during his career, and has admitted everything. Antiwar.com broke that to me:

Pollard's Ghost- by Justin Raimondo. Check this out for a well-linked background in the case, though I'm not totally sold on Raimondo's spin...

Kadish would smuggle out the papers, photograph them, send 'em over to his foreign spy handler, and bring them back to the lab, no one the wiser. A pretty classic scheme which should have gotten a bit of news bounce in the War on Terror, but of course it didn't. The engineer was passing secrets to Israel. Uff da...

This raises the question of how big the Israeli espionage thingy really gets. It's a big question especially since two AIPAC officers are supposed to go on trial this summer for circulating secrets between neo-con Pentagon staffer Lawrence "Larry" Franklin and the Mossad officers over at the Israeli embassy in Washington.

In the Fed's case for this "big" AIPAC scandal, everyone pretty much got caught red-handed, so the AIPAC defense strategy appears to be "graymailing" the Justice Department into disclosing all kinds of classified stuff. (The idea is that the feds' tummies turn sour and they give up because they don't want to cough up the docs. This is the traditional strategy DC lawyers for Oliver North / Elliot Abrams type guys use to get their guys off the hook in scandals like Iran-Contra.)

But let's go back to the beginning of the "big" AIPAC scandal. How did it start? The FBI was already spying on the AIPAC officers when Franklin wandered up to them at a DC restaurant. The Feds already wanted AIPAC on espionage. Why? The short speculative answer: the FBI has continuously been looking for a high-level spy/mole known by code name MEGA.

MEGA was the secret guy somewhere in the U.S. government in the 1980s who (among other things) provided extremely secret document numbers to the Israelis. In turn, the Israelis sent a more disposable spy, Jonathan Pollard, the low-level Pentagon staffer, as a gofer to get the documents. Pollard got caught; he's still in a U.S. jail. (There's a rumor Bush might pardon him, ugh). MEGA never got caught. So we could speculate that officially the FBI was looking to see if MEGA sends AIPAC messages, enter Franklin accidentally.

Ok ok... this is pretty baroque spy stuff. Why did this engineer get exposed? How did the FBI catch him? Well, they got a tip. A tip from somewhere in Israel.

Reportedly, someone in Ehud Olmert's government tipped off the FBI about the engineer spy because they wanted to prevent the expanding middle east war. In other words, an Israeli exposed an old engineer spy in order to damage the neocons / hawks' chances of ginning up the war with Iran.

Old school ex-CIA dude Phil Giraldi spilled it:

"Israeli sources are reporting that the FBI investigation of the Ben-Ami Kadish spy case resulted from a leak coming from inside the government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. The information on Kadish and on a number of other Americans who have spied for Israel was provided to the FBI anonymously, leading to the Bureau's opening of a full investigation. One source reports that the National Security Agency was provided with Yosef Yagur's current phone number and address and was able to obtain corroborating information on the case by tapping the phone."

It was interesting to read that, in a change-up, some Israeli military officials would not brief the U.S. Congress about the big bad Muslim threats because the Congress would now grill them over that just-exposed Israeli espionage.

Sounds like a good time to put out some fun stories about evil Syrians and bombing their weird shacks of shadiness.

Interesting stuff I suppose... If you're into that kind of thing. Beyond that, there is of course the Sibel Edmonds scandal, which involves a certain network of nuclear secrets traffickers, intersecting with heroin and Washington lobbyists, or something.

Someone speculated that MEGA was really Marc Grossman, a longterm DC hack who is certainly in well over his head on this scandal. Grossman also has been rumored to have tipped off the Turks and Pakistanis that Valerie Plame's front company, Brewster Jennings, was really a CIA front. But he got caught on an FBI wiretap which Sibel Edmonds probably had to listen to, while she worked there.

So there is that angle. Good luck figuring it out, kids! There's a good chance this stuff will get some sunlight during the summer. I'll drink to that!!

********

Some more awkward PR that had to get drowned out: Carter calls Gaza blockade a crime and atrocity | World | Reuters

Internet Radicalization Thought Crimes, Centers of Orwellian Excellence & Strategic Communication Laboratories: What Modules are

Submitted by HongPong on Tue, 2007-12-04 21:37

Internet Radicalization Thought Crimes, Centers of Orwellian Excellence & Strategic Communication Laboratories: What Modules are in an OpCentre?
Featuring Rep. Jane Harman's "Thought Police" Internet Radicalization and Crush These Meddling Kids Bill!
 Norm Coleman co-sponsors Thought Crime Bill.

Here is what MnBlue said: Norm Coleman co-sponsors Thought Crime Bill | mnblue:

The bill has two distinct parts. The first establishes a Commission. The second establishes a think tank of sorts to study how better to hunt down Arabs, suppress internet democracy, perform datamining of raw data obtained via illegal wiretapping and such noble efforts.

Like NSPD51 which is so vaguely worded that President Bush could suspend the Congress, Courts and Constitution over anything he deems is a national emergency, this bill is so vaguely worded that an administration without any ethical principles (namely the Bush Administration) in cahoots with one or more ethically challenged Senator(s) or Representative(s) (and we certainly have plenty of them) might manipulate this bill to do things like I've described if it ever became law.

From my reading of this bill, they could drag anyone in front of The Though Crimes Commission. Imagine questions like this: "Have you ever aided and abetted the terrorists by saying anything opposing the war on terrorism?" Also, the word force is not defined. Couldn't a boycott be considered force? What about Ghandi, Martin Luther King ... they used force, didn't they? Might this allow for a Joseph McCarthy of the 21st century?

Furthermore the Thought Crimes Think Tank might need to analyze trends spotted by the Bush Administration's illegal wiretapping. Since the capability does not currently exist to do datamining of terrabytes of data, they might need to reinstitute the NSA's Total Information Awareness program under their aegis. After analyzing these trends they might find alarming results and need to begin analyzing in real-time. After all the bill states that our current law enforcement and intelligence aparratus are not capable of preventing homegrown terrorism (see Finding 6). Might they then spawn a Thought Police to stop the evil-doers before they strike?

Getting worried? Have no fear, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are here. This is the same leadership which caved on FISA. Oops, I guess not. This bill passed stealthily through the House resulting in a 404-6 vote for it. Oops. I guess Nancy Pelosi was part of some back room deal that allowed this blighted child of repression to slink through the House. The House voted to suspend the rules (2/3 majority required) and cut short any debate. Sadly, our entire Minnesota delegation in the House voted for it. We never heard about this when it happened on 10/23/07 because the debate was cut short.

What is this really about? That's what I ask myself every day.

Right now there is definitely some kind of insane Orwellian conspiracy involving setting up things called "Centers of Excellence" that would basically spy on all of American society in every possible way, then calculate which points on the system count as terrorists, thus employing hordes of Control Freak Cabal minions and creating the RFID SPP Total Control Grid along the NAFTA Superhighway (which is evidently 1.5 blocks from my house).

I first discovered the evidence of this from documents pried from the Minnesota Department of Transportation. See July's post @ my day job, SuperRondo? MnDOT, NASCO, and I-35 NAFTA Superhighway plans | Politics in Minnesota.

This is intense! What is it, in short:

Also released [from MnDOT] were NASCO public relations documents describing how to spin media coverage, and MnDOT emails about media incidents. Oddly, NASCO distributed PR material disambiguating themselves, the cross-border Security and Prosperity Partnership, and even the Council on Foreign Relations, among their materials sent to Minnesota.

Interestingly, NASCO discusses an advanced systems integration platform called NAFTRACS (North American Facilitation of Transportation, Trade, Reduced Congestion and Security Project), which would be developed by SAVI, a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin, which already handles shipping container logistics for the Pentagon's Global Transportation Network. The NAFTRACS "integration pilot program will automatically gather, correlate, and interpret fragments of multi-source (Radar, AIS, & GPS tracks, Open Source, Intelligence, Watch list & Law Enforcement Report, CCTV, Bioterrorism sensors) data together into one collaborative portal-based environment, an [sic] ultimately a Total Transportation Domain Awareness Center of Excellence." The NASCO Center of Excellence and Total Domain Awareness Center would be the "centerpiece of the corridor coalition; will engage in studies, development and deployment activities; will seek funding & investment for a broad array of projects relevant to both the corridor and of current & national significance," including "the US-Mexico-Canada Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP); Hurricane Katrina/Rita impact; Cross-border trade facilitation and information sharing; inland ports network; counter-terrorism and security." In the last couple PDF files, the development of NAFTRACS through Lockheed Martin's advanced military-oriented research facility in Virginia is discussed at length.

This is what I am talking about. Basically cloning the military-industrial complex's tracking system and forcing it down our throat. Lockheed will always know where you are. They really love their "customers."

There was some speculation that big media events like 9/11 are manipulated in government psy-ops media centers, where video can get patched through and thus the stuff can be inserted or whatever. Evidently a UK company Strategic Communication Laboratories has OpCentres for just this purpose:

*********

An OpCentre can be made up of many different custom modules. Any of the following may be incorporated into an OpCentre: Strategic Communication Laboratories : What modules are in a OpCentre?

  • Media capture & analysis
  • Concept Development
  • Secure Communications
  • Target audience archive filtering
  • Cultural Alignment Unit
  • Recruitment & Training
  • Target audience issue analysis
  • Command Interface
  • Scenario Planning Team
  • Archive and recall systems
  • Radio Production
  • Redundancy Unit
  • Evaluation & MOE Unit
  • Radio Transmission
  • Media Management Unit
  • Strategic Campaign Planning
  • TV Production
  • Word-of Mouth Unit
  • Risk Analysis Unit
  • TV Transmission
  • Communication Planning Unit
  • Print Production
  • Message Development
  • Distribution & Logistics
  • Channel Management
  • Forward Command/Tactical
  • Environment Development
  • Administration/Management

Wow! Strategic Communication Laboratories : Company overview

Strategic Communication Laboratories is the leading supplier of strategic communications, information operations and public diplomacy to governments and military clients around the world.

The company is the exclusive licence holder of the BDi strategic communication methodology, which is the most advanced and effective persuasion methodology for social and group communication.

The company provides solutions mainly for defence, internal security and foreign affairs governmental departments, but also provides solutions for tourism, financial markets & investment and health programmes.

SCL operates throughout the world and is based in London, UK. The Head Office employs about 30 people and there maybe as many as 2000 specialists employed on projects worldwide.

The company was formed in 1993 and produced a number of projects for the Behavioural Dynamics Institute, which was undergoing development trials for its methodology. The successful outcome of the trials led to the permanent association of SCL and BDi.

Today SCL is not only the unique licence holder of the BDi methodology, but more importantly, after 12 years, it is the only team fully trained in its operation.

Strategic Communication Laboratories : What makes SCL stand out

Strategic communication differs from orthodox commercial communication (such as advertising, public relations, etc.) in that it concentrates on the behavioural outcome of the communication not just concepts such as brand awareness.

For example, commercial advertising might encourage an audience to hold very favourable attitudes about a Ferrari, but that does not necessarily lead to all those with a favourable attitude buying a Ferrari. Conversely, cigarette smokers may be fully aware of the dangers associated with smoking, but will carry on anyway.

Broadly speaking, commercial communication is measured by attitudinal results (considering one brand better than another) and strategic communication is measured by results (changes in actions).

SCL uses the BDI methodology, which is the most powerful communication methodology to influence group behaviour.

Even though much greater effort and resources must be applied at the front end (as compared to commercial advertising), the resultant outcomes are far more effective and predictable.

Consequently, the SCl solutions are used primarily where the communication outcomes are critical.

Strategic Communication Laboratories : What is an OpCentre?

An Opcentre is a command facility for strategic communications.

In this always-ready environment researchers can identify target audiences using highly advanced statistical models, strategists can orchestrate campaigns using the most effective scientific methods and media producers have access to innovative production techniques.

These units of expertise combine to create one of the most dynamic and influential ‘weapons' in the world.

An Opcentre puts influence, control and power back into the hands of the government and military, giving them greater power to influence the enemy in time of conflict and enhanced access to their citizens during a crisis. For instance, an Opcentre can be designed to override all national radio and TV broadcasts, allowing the government and military to communicate with the public as the need arises.

The Opcentre is a formidable tool for Homeland Security, Conflict Reduction, International Public Diplomacy and un-mediated Government communications.

What can the OpCentre do?

  • Launch a powerful psyop campaign against an engaged enemy
  • Engender support within the national community for proposed military action
  • Re-engineer foreign perceptions to potentially avert conflict altogether
  • Develop national resilience and behavioural compliance for homeland security issues
  • Produce powerful public diplomacy campaigns for political, economic, military issues
  • Maintain an ‘always ready' public communication command centre for critical incidents
  • Develop more effective public information campaigns for social and health issues

***********

Override ALL communications? So that's why everyone thought those holograms hit the WTC! Hah! Square the Quad Laser kids!

The idea is that they can keep building these things, and then make a lot of money declaring all the weird kids terrorists who need to be spied upon.

Frankly I don't know what the big picture is, but this is part of Rep. Jane Harman's "Thought Police" Internet Radicalization and Crush These Meddling Kids Bill, or whatever the fuck it is.

Everyone, I am planning a seriously large effort to expose this stuff and present in a way such that even the dumbest Baby Boomer can understand what this police state bullshit is all about.

I hate plastic surgery

Submitted by HongPong on Tue, 2007-12-04 21:12

Plastic surgery is what happens when the marketing people convince baby boomers that having weirdly smooth skin is somehow a good idea. It just goes all wrong as the unnaturally taut material crumbles. Melanie Griffith apparently has this. [See the second link - I cannot bear to post it.]

I really think that an area where conservatives and liberals can agree: The big media corporations always coarsen the culture, regardless of the right-wing posturing. Will the Wall Street Journal Page Three Girls arrive soon?

FoxNewsPorn.com is off and running: FOX News Porn. Even the favicon is awesome.

Also I am contending that Botox actually dampens the ability of the human mind to think critically / and / or express skepticism about authority. The loss of facial muscle action actually causes the bits of your brain to stop working right.

At least, it seems like there must be some larger neural feedback effect from the GODDAMN BOTULISM IN YOUR FACE.

Disgusting. Definitely making the elite stupider. Look at "The Real Orange County" or "Extreme Makeover". The people exalting this shit are definitely among the worst sociopaths in our society. Along with whoever promoted the necro-celebrity cult of Anna Nicole Smith on the so-called "News."

Think Progress » VIDEO COMPILATION: Anna Nicole Smith And Our National Media Embarassment

When Celebrity Plastic Surgery Backfires: 10 Nip/Tucked Celebs Who Now Look Like Aliens | Body Philosophy

Rock Stars Who've Had Plastic Surgery | Body Philosophy

Celebrities Who Admit to Having Had Plastic Surgery | Body Philosophy

10 Disturbing Facts About Genitals | Body Philosophy

Everything about plastic surgery you need to know: the crappy suburban version of Christianity somehow places this stuff above running soup kitchens or other inter-personal charity type modes of working. Somehow, Helping Other People, after a few hours, tends to make the average Paxil-pumped denizen forget about their terrifying crows feet.

All right hilarious. That is all I want to say about this wretchedly over-sized topic in our society.

Status check on this site: where did I go? What the hell is going on?

Submitted by HongPong on Tue, 2006-10-31 03:02

Alright, well it is about a week until the election, we are at the far end of October and there ain't been some Rovian surprise yet. I spent quite a while surfing the internet these last few weeks, and while I found a lot of interesting bits and pieces, I didn't feel inclined to post every chunk that I spotted. Without a proper job meeting my student loan & rent needs, blogging around here didn't seem like a proper use of huge chunks of time - not as the weather turns for the season. I also read Woodward's "State of Denial", which illustrated that Rumsfeld is the manager from hell, horrible to behold both within and without the bureaucracy.

As for this website, there are still Grand Plans, but for now they are circumscribed until I have web hosting where the MySQL database server isn't so damn slow. That would be March. However I really need to also graft Chinibby.com (for Nick and Abby's upcoming journey to China) onto the whole setup, and this process has been hampered by unemployment and the MySQL crappiness.

Right now I am making a couple decisions: having Drupal set to cut off posts after 1200 characters (and force you to click "read more" which loads really slowly because our MySQL speed sucks) - well that is no good. Now I am setting it to post the full text all on the front page. However, previous posts will retain their split frontpage (1200 characters)/readMore (the rest) type setup unless I edit them.

However, there is a problem. I have added a few 'book pages' providing primary source interviews about the Sibel Edmonds scandal. I don't want those interviews to post 100% on the front page, but i would like their existence to be noted. So I am going to add a box on the side that shows new image, book page and page-style nodes - and none of these will automatically post to the front page anymore.

Where's del.icio.us? I have a delicious bookmarks box in the sidebar, but that can't provide the sense of daily information that only a daily del.icio.us generated post has. So the auto-generated posts are going to be turned on again.

My temp job at Macalester ended early this month, and I have been doing various projects for a few small businesses. And why sugarcoat it? Of course I am reluctant to post the usual 'controversial' or 'conspiratorial' odds and ends when I don't have a day job - and some prospective employer might deem my conclusions about American complicity in Asian heroin trafficking a less-than-useful attribute. That's lame, and really, it just means that I should speculate less and fact check more, and then stand behind the conclusions wherever they lead. In other words, its not an employment liability if I take writing on the site seriously and put the time into it. But am I always willing to verify every bit beyond the first report, or somehow reach ontological certainty about inferred conclusions in international relations? Shit, half the fun is shooting from the hip in this stuff. For real. And besides, who needs fantastic tinfoil-hattery when reality itself is plainly corrupt and ugly as hell?

Fortunately, my Minnesota property tax rebate came today, which bought me a little breathing room since the end of regular hours at Mac.

I had these grand intentions of doing a bunch of volunteer campaign work at the beginning of the month. Of course that sense of selfish half-employed complacency hit me like a ton of beer the moment I was done working at Mac. Fortunately there is still a week left before the election, and I am actually going to make the best of that with volunteering for some race in Minnesota, probably out in the Burbs where Democrats need the help. Come to think of it, with the Property Tax rebate I could actually afford to send in some rebatable contribution to the DFL. As long as I momentarily have the scratch to do it, I really ought to spring on it.

The other important thing: due to a version update on Drupal, 4.7.4, I can start using Ecto to post blog posts, static pages and book pages. The interface is not perfect, but I always like using Ecto more than Safari or Firefox to make posts. There is still a problem with embedding images, but it can be uploaded via the image node and then called for.

Everyone, thanks for your interest in the site as we slide into a seventh year of operation - yeah, this site has been up since the end of 2000. Not continuously, and of course the oldest stuff from high school got vaporized when the Linux server I built died in an ugly way. The question now is what can this site actually provide, as a service to my friends and the general public. There have certainly been a number of fine moments in webbery around here, but the site needs a purpose that adds value to my life and everyone else's. It is not useful to spend a bunch of time on the-thing-in-itself without a particular purpose.

This is part of the reason that I am plotting to help obliterate the military-industrial complex as we know it next year. I have a secret plan. Of which this website is merely a tiny yet still useful part. Shh.

Other than that, well, after a lot of work by people other than me, it looks like for once there will be an election in this country that offers some hope. That's a sweet thing, and it means I'll have to quit grousing around in the pit of political self-pity that we ardent leftists are so familiar with. Rather than devote lots of time writing here, it is more important for me to get my life in order and feel happy about what I am doing. Sometimes writing on here helps, although it also can foster a sense of screaming in the wind for no particular tangible benefit.

However there are still some interesting goodies I have on hand for people, and with Ecto working again I can post more easily. With the post-front-page-size-limit turned off, I will be more inclined to write the hodgepodgy posts everyone knows and loves/hates. So I am not giving up, but I am trying to achieve a better balance in my whole scheme. And for folks who know me well, I think they would agree that's a good idea.

After the election there is still almost 1/6th of this grim year 2006 left, and I will be making the best of it. That requires a whole change in the approach.

Fingers crossed --Dan

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