Dan Feidt's log on Minnesota, Information Operations, spinstorms and latent contradictions.
Check out this 50-state composite survey of whether Bush broke the law in the wiretapping scandal. It certainly breaks down along red/blue lines, but it is still good to see that, say 39% in Virginia think he broke the law, to only 36% who think he didn't.
We are this close to starting the apocalypse. Isn't that fabulous?!
Bush Adviser Foresees Iraq Violence Lull
WASHINGTON - President Bush's national security adviser said Sunday that Iraqi leaders had "stared into the abyss" and determined that sectarian violence was not in their interest.
Although bombings and other attacks have surged in the last week, Stephen Hadley expressed optimism in the light of statements from Iraqis who have condemned the attacks and pledged to move forward with building a unity government.
"It is a time of testing for Iraqis," Hadley said on CBS' "Face the Nation."
"They've stared into the abyss a bit, and I think they've all concluded that further violence, further tension between the communities, is not in their interest," he said.
The cumulative Iraqi death toll since the shrine situation reached at least 400 today. And yet again this is presented as evidence that "the terrorists are getting desperate." Thanks for that insight.
MySpace machinations. I thought this sounded eerily familiar, as adults spazz out about MySpace, now that the kids have literally nowhere to hang out in RealSpace anymore. Wired on it:
The profile the Hermitage, Pennsylvania, Hickory High School student bestowed on his principal was not kind. For "birthday" he listed "too drunk to remember." And for vital stats like eye and hair color he wrote, simply, "big" -- a poke at the educator's girth that he managed to weave into most of the 60-odd survey questions in Trosch's fictional profile: Do you smoke? "Big cigs." Do you swear? "Big words." Thoughts first waking up? "Too … damn … big."
The teen told some friends at school about the gag. Big mistake.
As a judge would later put it, "word of the parody … soon reached most, if not all, of the student body of Hickory High School," and the fake MySpace profile, along with several less nuanced commentaries crafted by other students, became a monster hit at the school. The administration banned student PC use for six days, canceling some classes, while they traced the profile to 17-year-old senior Justin Layshock, who promptly confessed and apologized.
"We grounded him and didn't allow him on the computer for two weeks," says Layshock's mother, Cherie Layshock. But the school had stronger medicine in mind. Layshock was suspended for 10 days, then transferred into an alternative education program for students incapable of functioning in a regular classroom.
A gifted learner who had been enrolled in advanced-placement classes and tutored other kids in French, Layshock spent the next month in a scaled-down three-hour-a-day program where a typical assignment saw students building a tower out of paper clips as a lesson in teamwork. The punishment led to an ACLU lawsuit that is ongoing, and garnered the school district a slew of critical stories in the local papers.
Wherein they make the point that (public) schools can't really control the speech of students at home. The concept of digital satire, ah, so attractive, the Siren Song of mocking bastards at school. Well I learned that lesson the hard way. Anyway.
Afghanistan is intrinsically rebellious, and that is pretty much all you need to know:
Afghan, Nato and US forces surrounded the main high security prison in Kabul yesterday with tanks after it was taken over by more than 1,500 Taliban and Al-Qaida prisoners during a violent riot. At least 30 prisoners were injured and unconfirmed reports said seven others were killed in fighting after inmates took two women prison guards hostage in protest at new regulations requiring them to wear uniforms.
Bursts of gunfire could be heard throughout the day from Pulicharkhi prison after the Afghan police rapid reaction unit, armed with rocket-propelled grenade launchers, entered the complex in an attempt to prevent a mass break-out. Prisoners were heard chanting “Allah-o-Akbar” in between the firing.
Pulicharkhi, which holds around 2,000 prisoners, became notorious during Afghanistan’s Communist era with allegations of torture and secret executions. About 110 detainees held by the US at Guantanamo Bay are expected to be transferred there later this year.
The prisoners had allowed 70 women inmates to be moved to another part of the prison after storming into the female wing from their own. As night fell, negotiations announced by the Interior Ministry to end the stand-off were suspended. Security forces had yet to gain access to parts of the jail under the prisoners’ control.
“I have heard that prisoners have been injured. Taliban and Al-Qaida members from different countries are behind this unrest,” said the Deputy Justice Minister, Mohammad Qasim Hashimzai. “They still control the wing from where they had started the riot. They have demands; we are going to listen to what they want. If we cannot solve it through negotiations, we have our own options.”
If the United States and NATO cannot administer Kabul's main prison, are they really going to be able to check the heroin industry or even deal with (let alone attempt to dominate) the various heavily armed ethnic factions?
The Soviet Union was defeated here, bankrupting them. The British were defeated here (twice - perhaps thrice depending how you score it), expending a huge amount of cash from the India colony, and ultimately helping drag down British-Indian colonization. And now, NATO and the United States cannot control the Afghani equivalent of Abu Ghraib. To me, this is totally in keeping with the pattern of history.
After all, they've had opium since Alexander the Great stopped by. [maybe apocryphal, but sounds good].
And of course America's Iran paranoia is skating off into a dimension all its own. Google News 'Iran Nuclear' search:
Results 1 - 50 of about 64,400 for iran nuclear
A final note. Let me introduce a nice old map from the Great Game. Via Wikipedia's recommended Great Game history, a really subtle HongPong.com geopolitical illustration:
That's Persia in Blue. 1848. Good times. (Also note that Kuwait didn't exist)
My good friend dschned had his nice Apple laptop stolen recently (although fortunately he had just backed up most of his stuff). So now he is trying to find a good replacement, and was attracted to the older G4-based Mac Mini. We went over to FirstTech on Hennepin to see what was going on, and the guys there advised us that Apple was releasing new models of something today, with the typical Jobs mystique of theatrical surprise.
They didn't let us down. The new Mac Minis look damn good and feature either single or double-core Intel chips, at $599 for a 1.5GHz Intel 'Solo' or $799 for a 1.66 GHz Core Duo, with built-in wireless Internet. They finally added more USB ports, Bluetooth, and one of those spiffy remotes. You can also get a DVI to analog video adapter for the TV, and other such stuff. They also released the hilarious iPod Hi-Fi, which I really hope isn't a boondoggle.
Again, I am not really sure if Apple is going to screw the pooch by letting the Intel chip lead to OS X all over generic PCs, thus killing Apple's profit margin (a la the Clone Wars). However, releasing a Mac Mini starting at $599 (and even less for education - $579) is a great way to get the Apple brand throughout the various more economically constrained niches of the world, putting them more on par with Dell and generic manufacturers. I am imagining Mac computer labs in Pakistan or something like that. Apple always used to neglect the low end, and it's great that they are releasing what appears to be a pretty good machine for that.
I really want to write something about the oil wars right now, (surprise) but I have real work of sorts to deal with. The new Politics in Minnesota campaign site is nearly finished, and I gots to get it out the door.... thanks to the contributors for carrying some weight right now!!
Ironically enough, earlier today I was playing Call of Duty, a WWII first-person shooter game which takes you through a few classic parts of the war, from the perspective of a Brit and a Soviet soldier. I just got to the Stalingrad levels, full of fog, rubble and snipers. Good stuff. And I just got some returned spam, as some Russian is forging "thwart.net" emails to other Russians. But it looks like a hell of a deal!
I have used the Dashboard translator to illuminate some of what it means. The Russian advertising industry is probably baroque and sinister in really amusing ways.
Внимание! ДО 31 МАРТА КУРС ДОЛЛАРА $ 1 = 3 РУБля!!!
Attention! UNTIL 31 MARCH THE EXCHANGE VALUE OF DOLLAR I 1 = 3 RUBLES!!!
Рекламно Агентство «RBA MEDIA» проводит распродажу собственных рекламных площадей и предлагает Вам организовать эффективную рекламную кампанию, а именно – разместить рекламу в издания на уникальных условиях:
Advertising agency "RBA MEDIA" is conducted the sale of its own advertising areas and proposes to you it organized effective advertising operating period, namely - it placed advertisement into the publications on the unique conditions:
ВАША РЕКЛАМНАЯ КАМПАНИЯ ПО ЦЕНЕ $ 1 = 3 РУБЛЯ!
YOUR ADVERTISING OPERATING PERIOD ON THE PRICE I 1 = 3 RUBLES!
Данный курс действует на размещение рекламы любого объема в любых номерах изданий 2006 года на страницах журналов, участвующих в акции при оплате не менее 3-х публикаций до 31.03.06 г. Кроме того, каждый рекламодатель данной акции получает бесплатную полугодовую подписку на издание с собственной рекламой.
This course acts on the arrangement of the advertisement of any capacity in any numbers of the publications 2006 on the pages of the periodicals, which participate in the action with the payment not less 3rd publications to 31.03.06 g. furthermore, each sponsor of this action is obtained free half year subscription to the publication with his own advertisement.
Звоните: 8-909-630-3868
и Вы получите уникальную рекламу кампанию за минимальные деньги!
Стоимость рекламы в журналах, участвующих в данной акции:
and you will receive unique advertisement operating period for the minimum money!
Cost of advertisement in the periodicals, which participate in this:
[And there are several items like this:]
Журнал «АВТО - ОБОЗРЕНИЕ»
Официальная стоимость рекламы:
1/16 полосы - $ 600
Стоимость рекламы во время акции:
1/16 полоса - 1.800 руб.
Periodical "IS AUTO- - REVIEW" the official cost of the advertisement:
1/16 strips - i 600 cost of advertisement during the action: 1/16
strip - 1.800 rub.
I have to say that Russian is probably the coolest looking language.
Hello, everybody. My name is Jon Lyons. A lot of people think I've got something to hide because my avatar is an adorable kitten, but no...that's just how I roll. If I or anyone else ever says anything unpleasant here, just look at the kitten for a while and continue reading when you feel better. It's always worked for me.
I figured I should take advantage of my accound on old nostalgic HongPong to finally make my voice heard on the internet. As such, I had a lengthy post prepared about defending the traditions of The Enlightenment and rational thinking from the forces of Post-Modernism and cultural relativism, illustrated with extensive anecdotes from times I've argued with hippies at parties ("Science can't explain a...a bird, man..."), but ultimately my familiarity with marks on paper or screen ends when people start calling them "words." I did draw a cartoon for the paper about it, though:
Anything else I could say would ultimately be a watered-down repetition of the rhetorical devices used on Butterflies and Wheels. That being the case, I would much rather you looked at these nine drawings I did of people getting hit in the head. Standby...
[A depressing note from Dan: we lack the bandwidth to host Jon's pics in the full resolution & size he sent us. I put the originals in this folder for your pleasure. Most of the pics O pain after the fold]
Anyway, I saw Sarah Silverman's "Jesus is Magic" last night, thanks to the fine folks at the campus Hillel Center providing me with a free ticket, and let me tell you that she is without a doubt easily one of the funniest people ever to have lived. Good comedy should exist in a moral vacuum, with no concept of right or wrong, and few other people can manage to sound so oblivious to to the concept of taste on stage. And, you know, the jokes are good.
Theoretically I could contine this post and talk about how I saw Repo Man the other day and what a cool movie it is and how I finally understood it - Not really a movie to watch when you're 8. But the only reason for me to talk about something like that would be to try and justify posting silly pictures with some kind of personal narratives to make myself sound interesting. I should know by now that doesn't work.
This is Jon, signing off. [More pics on the flip... Pretty fucking awesome for a first entry --Dan]
My good friend Andy Tweeten is out in Great Falls, Montana, working for the Jon Tester for Senate campaign. He sent out an email today to let people know where he's at.
He also takes care of the TesterTime campaign blog. Right on. Tester is something of a prairie populist, and he's in a neck-and-neck race with some DLC-style city slicker lawyer type for the Democratic primary. Tester's opponent in November (hopefully) will be the wildly unpopular Conrad Burns. It's a fight worth watching, and I'm glad Andy's around to get a handle on things.
Something completely different: Andy also alerted me to a tidbit about how Facebook is used by the Man to peer into our lives. Interestingly, one of the groups behind Facebook, the Accel Group, has been tied to DARPA. Including a nasty threat to the president that led to Secret Service visits for some pissed-off student.
The story has a sad little note at the end:
This is a revised version of this piece. An earlier version incorrectly implied that U.S. intelligence agencies were involved in Facebook and may have been read as suggesting that Facebook played a role in disseminating information to authorities. CampusProgress.org regrets these errors.
Well, if you post stuff publicly, and intelligence agencies use Facebook to find it, it's not exactly facebook's fault. If it would be bad for the District Attorney to see your facebook page, then you shouldn't have it there. But I wonder if facebook uses heuristics / AI methods to dig for incriminating stuff that people have posted themselves. And what of the private messages?
MySpace, on the other hand, is controlled by Rupert Murdoch, who will ultimately own all their poor souls. Kind of a pity.
Tester will have to come riding in at the last second to save the day. Go Jon!!
RED SCARE, PART 4,394,480: ThinkProgress.org featured a video with a Fox News talking head, who informed us that Russian Spetznaz Teams smuggled Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction into Syria and the Bekaa Valley.
MCINERNEY: Well, I believe that — that [Saddam Hussein] had [WMD] and then the Russians convinced him, because they sent a team in, a Spetsnaz [Russian Special Forces] team in, and they moved those weapons into three locations in Syria and one into Bekaa Valley. And they did it very thoroughly. They were very professional. They were Spetsnaz with GRU. They knew exactly where all the material was, because they were preventing the inspectors from finding it. And then they had a brilliant what they call mass deroka – deception - campaign. When the Iraqi survey group didn’t find anything, then they spread throughout the capitals of Europe and the U.N: “See, there were no WMD.”
O’REILLY: So you believe that the Russians themselves moved the WMD’s?
MCINERNEY: Absolutely, absolutely.
Now this is bullshit, but it reflects how the new order of symbolic logic is being constructed this year. The general's threatening language must focus on Russia, because Russia is starting to make moves with HAMAS and Iran, plus people like McInerney surely see a need to finally kill Russia and steal their energy.
More realpolitik below the fold, but first let's look at the psychological effect of the information, rather than its truth value.
The everyday man on the street thinks "Iran equals The Nuclear" and therefore accepts what is happening. With Iraq, all it took was a small batch of defectors working for Ahmed Chalabi, a demonic press, and the ruling establishment to scare the shit out of this whole country. When you are held in fear, you unthinkingly fork over political power — more precisely, control over a kind of emotion that is pre-political power. The key to this power is found more in the id than the ego.
Generating psychological projection of fear onto Other groups is a crucial form of war propaganda — or psychological warfare performed on the domestic population, in some cases. The mental image of the WMDs becomes a source to project anger and anxiety towards. "We can't let them hit us" becomes a kind of mental crutch, colored goggles laid over the general sense of anxiety. It's not your fault, it comes from the outside, the government reassures us.
But don't think about Abu Ghraib, or any evidence the leadership is incompetent. Thoughts against the leadership endanger the information war! You are not smart or privileged enough to evaluate our performance. You cannot talk about military policy because only the Dark Priesthood (McInerney and his like) can truthfully tell YOU what is going on. This is the only safe way to feel authority and information.
Here in Minnesota, the Republicans are also testing the new "Midwest Heroes" ads from the RNC's 527 ad machine. These ads say: you must believe that distrusting the leadership equals making a dead soldier's mother cry. You must psychologically project motherhood into trusting the authority of the war-makers. (it's quite the cynical inversion of Cindy Sheehan, I have to say) These "mother == trust in war" and "father == the Bush aura of fear" concepts will surely play quite well, all year long, upon millions of fearful and angry American minds. As Progress for America Voter Fund admits:
Some politicians.... policies thwart the ability of American families to support the War on Terror, keep more of what they earn, provide a safe environment for educating their children,... [primal father?]
TV pundits like McInerney perform the intellectual carpet-bombing of absolute gibberish, week after week, so that the average drooling Fox viewer, rendered into a narcotized state from all the whooshing colors and racist theme music, is left with a hazy, angry impression that the fuckers are trying to bring us down. (This is assisted by frequently replaying 9/11 clips on a split screen: video masochism => longing for authority)
The Freudian Trip:
It is quite possible that the average viewer's sense of ego is deactivated or degraded. Their primitive id emotions can be pushed up and down. They experience a kind of 'primal father' longing for order and authority; a need to experience order, sadism, if you will. (Freud thought of Moses as an excellent, benevolent Primal Father figure)
There are shadows in the dark. Only the light can drive this back, das volken are the true people of this country. We are clean, they are dirty... And around and around it goes.
Watch "On the streets of America 3" for the ultimate effect of these things.... Russia's actual role below the fold - this is what they're actually scared of....
Russia is going to do its own thing, and the hawks marketed to morons on Fox will perform Threat Construction to create an aura of fear and instability. Thus, we are soothed on our steady march towards doom. (Thanatos, the sublimated death wish instinct, might really be at the heart of the war, in producing an attraction to achieving a state of calm: the afterlife? Millennialism?)
Ok, ok.... That was a little nuts. But I'm trying to describe the general state of emotional manipulation these days. We need to stick to cold realism to understand more of what's really happening, beyond the tormented imagination of a Fox viewer.
So, more realistically, George Friedman lays it out in a Stratfor email: "The Middle East and Russia's New Game":
And this brings us to Moscow's invitation to Hamas. There are a number of reasons to make the invitation -- the single most important of which was that the United States did not want it to be done. ...... between the lines, the Russians wanted to deliver two messages to Washington.
The first was that Moscow no longer regards itself as a junior partner to the United States in foreign policy -- and, in fact, doesn't regard itself as a partner at all. Second, they wanted to make it clear that, just as Washington is making trouble for Russia in its own periphery, the Russians are equally capable of making trouble in areas that are of fundamental interest to the United States. Moscow's message is this: Do not assume that the failure of Russia to exercise its foreign policy options means that the Russians have no foreign policy options. Nothing Russia is getting from the United States in economic relations compensates for the geopolitical harm the United States is doing to Russia. In other words, this is about 2005, not 1995. A lot happened in the last decade, most of it not good for the Russians. The rules are changing.
There is another, more directly strategic reason for the move. Russia has, and has always had, strategic interests in the Middle East. Given the decay of Russia's strategic position in the formerly Soviet region, these interests -- which today include ties to Syria and a potential partnership with Iran on nuclear enrichment -- have become more important rather than less. The U.S. penetration of Central Asia, the Baltics and Ukraine cannot simply be countered in these areas; it is only by challenging the United States in the Middle East that Moscow can divert American attention from areas of great interest to the Russians. It is not just a matter of bandwidth -- meaning that the more trouble the United States has in the Middle East, the less time it has for the former Soviet Union. It is also the case that if Russia is to contain the American presence along its southern frontier, having influence and a presence to the rear of this region -- in the Middle East -- gives it leverage over some of the former Soviet republics.
......Russia's willingness to speak to Hamas creates a new dynamic in the Muslim world. Syria and Iran are seeking "great power" support against the United States. ....By inviting Hamas and possibly opening a channel between Hamas and the Israelis, Russia is positioning itself to become a mediator in other disputes, and to walk away with relationships that the United States has been unable to manage.
Given the robustness of Russia's arms industry, which is much more vital and advanced than is generally understood, the Russians could return to their role as arms provider to the region and patron of governments that are hostile to the United States. The situation from 1955 to 1990 was a much more natural geopolitical dynamic than the current situation, in which Russia is really not present in the region. Russia is a natural player in the Middle East.
Remember also that Hamas is very close to Saudi Arabia, with which Russia has an intensely competitive relationship in the energy markets. And then there is Chechnya. The Russians have long charged that "Wahhabi" influence was behind the Chechen insurgency as well as insurgencies in Central Asia. In the Russian mind, "Wahhabi" is practically a code word for "Islamist militants," including al Qaeda. The Russians also feel that, while the Americans have forced the Saudis to provide intelligence on al Qaeda, they have not elicited similar aid on the issue of the Chechens. In other words, Moscow perceives the United States not only as having neglected to help Russia on Chechnya, but as actually hindering it.
So what's the lesson? 2006 will have a certain Retro-Cold War tint to it. There may be a kind of vintage comeback for "Daisy" style political ads. Iran fits in as a kind of annex to the Evil Empire. And your id is subject to psychological warfare.
Just another Wednesday afternoon in the Information Age...
Introducing: Squarehead Bunny
Whassup sweet babies, just wanted to rap a-choo awhile
"It's hip to be square- proven fact, proven fact- and here I am. Haha, just kidding- say, how you doin' today? Having fun? Having fun just being young, just being yourselves and being young and yeah, yeah. Me too, man, me too- maybe I don't look like I'm on top of the world, but you know, sometimes we have bad days. Sometimes we have good days, too, y'know. The ball bounces our way. The toast hits the ground jelly-up, haha. Haha."
"Hey man, guess what? Well, I was out in the yard this morning just, y'know, doing whatever, and man... You ain't even gonna believe this man, but guess what I found? Grass. Grass, man, grass, just a whole big 'ol lawn full of it. And I'm like, Rock'N'Roll- cool, y'know, just too cool, man, got all this grass, too much to even know what to do with it. So I lwent to town on it, man, just ate the horse snot out of that grass. Man, it was dee-licious and dee-lightful, this grass, and I just got all I could get."
"Man, fuck this carrot"
"See, when I was growing up, we didn't have no grass, man- neighborhood was in the city, but real tight, man, real uptight. Out in the yard, y'know, whatever goes, but man oh man, in my neighborhood you couldn't squeeze out one single little, perfect sphere without everyone in the row of cages knowing 'bout it. Man, if I had had some grass, maybe then... Anyway, didn't get no grass growing up, just trying it for the first time..."
"Imma tell you something- you my friend, and you ain't never need to ask me for any grass- k? 'Cause I'm your friend, you get however much grass you want- hell, got a whole yard full of it. Yessir, just as much grass as you want. None of that hard pellet stuff or that dry, crushed up stuff, just good fresh grass, finest I've ever seen."
"Munch, munch, nawmean? Munch munch, muthafuckas... Fucking munch..."
"So I'm watching this new Woody Allen movie, and I'm like, asides from the big 'ol chest booty on this blond, why am I watching this? I'd had like four and half pounds of grass before this, like for real, because I think I am gonna love this movie, but naw, just some guy who keep getting away with everything. No bunny wanna go watch a movie about some guy not getting chased around or nothin'- just walking around watching him not get caught for stuff he did... Man, all I wanted to do the whole time was just get back home to the lawn, nawmean? Munch munch..."
Nick in Southern Cone 2006. He is in studying abroad in a ritzy part of Old Palermo. Today: "no more excuses:"
so it went down like this: [......] a hopping place, but not really on a monday night. my other buddy lucho never shows up, so i am basically chilling by myself, and i start to get eyed by some argentines, who i now know are fucking busted ass broke no class dirty fucking shithead BITCHES.
I start shooting the shit with them a little bit, not very drunk at all, and they walked with me for the 4-5 blocks to my house. i was stupid enough to take my wallet out to buy a beer, and the only bill i had was 100 pesos. for some reason i put 20 of that in my pocket, after paying 8 for a huge budweiser i fucking shared with these kids. the kid who never said one word but had a chicago bulls hat on grabbed my wallet, i fucking cracked him in the face as hard as i could, just another kid tripped me and another pushed me down from behind. i was wearing sandals so they were fucking gone, plus they were fucking fast. luckily, when i cracked the motherfucker, he was only able to grab the cash out of my wallet and a whole bunch of my ID cards fell out, which was lucky as hell....
.......this country is fucking bogus, yáll. palermo is the third richest neighborhood in the city, behind recoleta and belgrano, and i couldnt even walk alone without getting jacked by a gang of 14-17 year old homeless kids. god bless the u.s. of a. for the first time i felt like going home, but there is no way i am sacrificing a semester´s worth of credits. now i know i cant fucking walk around buenos aires alone at night.
He will soldier on, and solve some local economic contradictions when he can.
This is what movies are supposed to do.-61.jpg)
We can all agree that Hollywood lacks any guts nowadays. Thus, the best "movie" movie of the year would have to shatter all boundaries of taste and convention — make you laugh, cry. Only Gary Busey and Billy Zane have the guts to get us out of this cinema funk. And they have.
Valley of the Wolves: Iraq (Turkish: Kurtlar Vadisi Irak) is hands-down one of the coolest movies I have seen in a long time. It will be a cult classic, it will cause some angry Christian riots in Cleveland. It's that good. According to Wikipedia, it is the most expensive Turkish movie ever. Actual plot details there - mine are purely visual impressions.
It's more cliche than an episode of Knight Rider, more crass than Jerry Bruckheimer, and it owes debts to Full Metal Jacket, Lethal Weapon, Hong Kong, Kurosawa, Ford's westerns, and every late 80's action flick on FX or USA. Check the website for an English trailer (WMV - ok on Mac) – because the version I downloaded was almost totally Turkish.
Set aside the canned "anti-Semitic" reaction. Busey really has no more than ten minutes of screen time as the evil Jewish doctor stealing organs from Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib and shipping them to Israel. But someone had to play this unique, absurdly comic villain, finally bringing the unreal Abu Ghraib universe into movie culture through wicked Dr. Frankenstein-style High Camp. (Abu Ghraib really is this pointless & random, I think is Busey's subtext)
Billy Zane is Sam William Marshall, the Coalition Provisional Authority messiah-figure / piano-playing murderous psychotic, usually clad in white. He poses as a "white hat" for the savages: get it? (I think Zane figured he owed the Middle East an outlandish villain after The Mummy - fair's fair)
Zane has an entourage of evil mercenaries – the khaki vests, buzz cuts and machine guns are a fair visual representation of a typical Blackwater Personal Security Detail. In the English teaser he seems to say "When the Turkmen are done, the Arabs are next," and the movie mainly follows the travails of the Turkmen minority in northern Iraq.
I got Valley off a Turkish BitTorrent site (here's the Torrent - it works, be patient). For a little clip hit this link and uncompress it. In that early scene, Zane, his mercenaries and the U.S. soldiers raid the Turkish headquarters in Iraq. He tips over a Turkish flag – cue the dramatic music. They lead the personnel out to the truck with bags over their heads, and in the film version, an officer writes a letter, and puts it and a Turkish flag in a bag, and shoots himself. The raid is true, the suicide, not.
I downloaded a version with poor sound, and extreme flickering (the frames are not synced - it strobes really bad). Also, everything was dubbed into Turkish, including Zane and Busey. No subtitles — though the English-language trailer on the website features their lines in English, so hopefully if when the movie is released in the U.S., it will be a little easier to follow.
This film is awesome, and it would be a huge hit in the states. It reminded me of Reservoir Dogs, Apocalypse Now, the insanity of the news, Bollywood, Rambo, The Spook Who Sat by the Door, Natural Born Killers, Lord of the Rings, the Chuck Norris flick Delta Force, a bit of The Matrix (roof escape), anything about Compton. Also reminded me of the book "The Ugly American" - as there is a scene with Zane handing out toys and food to the Iraqis while the media captures it.
(and of course Battle of Algiers and Lawrence of Arabia. And Xbox's "Call of Duty 2": the bazaar levels)
A lot of people die in "Valley of the Wolves." They are killed by a suicide bomber, crazed mercenaries with rocket launchers, jumpy U.S. troops, Zane himself. I took quite a few screenshots and so I will lay out a bit of the action. This movie would be huge in the United States – and it might make Rumsfeld's head explode in anger.
And I'm sorry, it's fun. It's revolting. It's utterly insane and packed with tons of Hollywood cliches, starting with the Noir venetian blind trick in the first minute.
Go look at the IMDB comments for a sampling of reactions. A Turk is pissed because the heroes are gangsters. How many ways could this movie make you angry? That's what makes art fit a certain place and time...
A little more of the cast:
Badass Sheikh Abdurrahman Halis Kerkuki. He intervenes in a beheading-video-in-progress and rides a white horse.
Strikingly similar-looking to the Battle of Algiers guy.
The two-bit Turkish gangsters who save the day in their black suits and white shirts. Tarantino heroes, without a doubt.
Leila, the young woman whose groom is killed in the wedding at the beginning of the movie (see English trailer). She kicks a lot of ass.
I started taking screenshots after the flick started, after the initial raid. Spoiler warning: this outlines a lot of what happens. Don't look at this if you want to be surprised. Including dramatic ending. Although I couldn't fully understand it.
There are a few dozen pictures on the flip. By "Turkish guys" some might actually be Turkmen. Again, I had no dialogue when watching.
Some kind of dedication ceremony. Dear Leader poster in back there.
Prisoners (including those captured from the wedding) are deposited at Abu Ghriab. Busey is furious that the mercenary killed a bunch of the Iraqis in the container. Yes, those are the coolers for Israel.
A dramatic conversation between Zane and the Turkish guy I couldn't understand. There was a bomb under Zane's chair. Zane is essentially holding the crowd of children hostage while the bomb is defused.
The evil mercenaries wasting innocent people. Rambo, anyone?
Sniper & suicide bombing type situation. Lots of wounded soldiers & innocent people.
More of the Abu Ghraib situation. German Shepherd & Lynnie England-style. The beginning of this scene is really shocking.
Public Relations - handing out food and goodies as media watches. Hence the subtle "white hat" metaphor.
Dramatic destruction of a minaret with priest inside.
Ethnic cleansing / forcible displacement of Turkmen, I think, as U.S. soldier watches, confused. There is a monologue of sorts, and I distinctly picked out something like "and then what of the Arabs?" This is pretty much the only place you will hear about the ethnic cleansing of minorities in Iraq – which alarms the Turks.
Sweet religious ceremony. This was really cool.
STAB!
Hostage video in progress. Who is that actor??
Zane has a piano moment.
Widow seeks wisdom from clerics and has a dangerous confrontation, handled calmly
Climactic battle - she is good with a knife. Turkish guys gotta save the day.
Classic Hollywood / Shakespearean ending / Nose ring symbolizes lost love & such.
Just another Day in the Valley.
I am sorry if looking at this spoiled some parts of the movie for you. Who knows how long it will take for this to get onto an American screen? If it never does, we are the poorer for it. This is great Saturday afternoon popcorn fare. I just want to actually understand the dialogue.
Just amazing. Just another day in the valley of the wolves.
Woody? Bigfoot? Just Relax™
First, a welcome to Pixeldusted, and may he continue to toil in anonymity for our bemusement.
Last night I went to see Match Point, Woody Allen's alleged comeback film and the first time he has turned his camera away from his home of Manhattan to another city, London. For those of you wondering if the movie does, indeed, represent a return to form- a real Woody Allen movie, one that has some of the same combination of pathos, casual intellectualism and visual cues swiped from much better French directors- let me just say
no. it sucks. do not give Woody ten dollars.
In more important (and exciting!) news, Bigfoot has been sighted! It would seem that the tribesmen of a southern Malaysian state have spotted a
12" hairy man-beast on the outskirts of a national forest. Three fishermen of the tribe started a popular obsession last November when they reported seeing three of the creatures at the edge of the Endau-Rompin reserve. Apparently the tribesmen have less of a credibility gap then might be expected from a people who believe the hairy hominids to be the largest of three mysterious proto-human species living in the forest, as the government has dispatched "an official Bigfoot-tracking team" to the site. Of course, Maylasians are in no way familiar with the Bigfoot of western culture, so every news story you will read will contain a healthy portion of Lost in Translation. Other than it being twelve feet tall and hairy, and possessing a propulsion system capable of making the enormous footprints it apparently left on the river banks, there is little to go off of as far as what the creature might look like, though I have clear picture in my mind:
"Man, do I get off on fucking with Malaysian fishermen!"
Even more elusive and unctuous than Manimal, Man-Boy George took to the floor today to announce that *gasp*
MILWAUKEE - Saying the nation is on the verge of technological breakthroughs that would "startle" most Americans,
[...]
Our nation is on the threshold of new energy technology that I think will startle the American people," Bush said. "We're on the edge of some amazing breakthroughs — breakthroughs all aimed at enhancing our national security and our economic security and the quality of life of the folks who live here in the United States.
Shucks, was that ever easy! A month ago we had to do something and now it's almost here, the solution! Hurrah! I can officially accept the opposite of everything you say to be true! Thanks! Seriously, though? Seriously? The State of the Union focussed on energy independence and then our plan is Deus Ex Machina? "Something will come along to fix our problems!" That's the answer!?
Secret wish of mine: to be chosen as a Citypages' MN Blog of the Day. Vote for me or something...
Thanks to pixeldusted for the post, it says more about the bureaucracy than I can even convey. Sweetness.
OS X is at 10.4.5 right now, but an intrepid hacker known as Maxxus has developed a hacked version of 10.4.4 that can be set up and operate on ordinary Intel-based PCs. I really wonder what Steve Jobs is really thinking right now. He must surely realize this is the most leet (1337) or stylish way to get people around the world interested in running OS X on PCs. Thus, he's prepped to fight Microsoft Windows on his own turf, and the first attack wave could be the hackers. This would be cool as hell.
On the other hand, the bread and butter that kept Apple solvent through the bad years was hardware sales, not OS sales. Nowadays, the iTunes Music Store has good volume but razor-thin margins, and OS sales are pretty much icing on the cake. (also Apple podcasting is starting to do pay subscriptions, via Slashdot) If Apple tried to license its operating system, they could essentially cannibalize their hardware market share.
Oh wait, that already happened in the days of the Mac Clones, a misstep that nearly killed Apple. So when they saw that Maxxus had posted the hacks to one site, the vaunted packs of carnivorous Apple lawyers sent out a DMCA warning to that site, osx86project.org, which is focused on the possibilities of OS X + x86. The proprietors of that site have no wish to offend Apple, and have removed the links to Maxxus' site and the patches he developed.
As I also have no real desire to receive a DMCA notice from Apple, I will leave it to you to google the matter if you really want the patch, or refer to BoingBoing's coverage, MacSlash on it, or Slashdot. As one internationalist hacker type I know remarked,
Dude, it is illegal to DISCUSS how to go around encryption in the US.
Yes, this is what happens nowadays. But it's nothing new. Consumer electronics like your DVD player are now Black Boxes of Mystery which you, as a mere Owner, are un-Privileged to mess around with. It is a horrifying infringement of freedom that will require a second Revolution to defeat. In the meantime, well damn, the OS X patches are still on the Internet (hosted in more rebellious countries) so you can get them.
Linux is booting on Intel Macs now, even via an external USB drive (via MacSlash). Better yet, it is on Gentoo Linux, the same flavor that powers this very website.
In its infinite loop wisdom, Apple decided to embed a secret message to hackers in the new Intel machines, via CNN, slashdot and OSX86project:
Your karma check for today:
There once was a user that whined
his existing OS was so blind
he'd do better to pirate
an OS that ran great
but found his hardware declined.
Please don't steal Mac OS!
Really, that's way uncool.
(C) Apple Computer, Inc.
There is also a hidden kernel extension, Don't Steal Mac OS X.kext . Apple has never made it very hard to pirate the OS — which I think is actually part of a long-term subversive strategy, rather than some kind of incomprehensibly huge oversight on Jobs' part. They have never required call-in serial activation or any of that shit, for example. Again, the OS was always icing on the cake. Bill Gates is perplexed.
Gary Busey nukes conventional cinema: In other news, Gary Busey plays a crazed American doctor stealing organs of Arabs for Israel in a wildly popular Turkish film, "Kurtlar Vadisi Irak" or "Valley of the Wolves: Iraq". Billy Zane is also in it. Apparently it was on Turkish television for a few seasons before getting turned into a movie.
Fortunately I have ascertained a way to download this film from the Internet, as (somehow) it has not yet found an American distributor. Get it off BitTorrent right here. There are warnings that the sound and video quality are terrible (1 or 2 out of 10), but such a spectacle cannot wait. I will post if i find a better version.
I will start with an excerpt from my life as government contractor...
As a consultant doing work for the government, one is often floored by the inefficiency of our federal government. Sometimes, you are shocked by the endless bureaucracy, sometimes the unchecked spending inflames the taxpayer in all of us. Surprisingly, the level of apathy that government workers maintain towards their work has been the most difficult pill to swallow. At least it was, until I experienced first hand the parable of Bob:
After numerous calls and a lot bitching, my fellow contractor and I are able to corner 3 government workers in a computer lab. We have been trying for weeks to get them to complete one of their most basic tasks related to the change we are implementing in their system (it takes 1 person 1 hour to do this task). We finally get a supervisor to agree to help us with this task and he even brings 2 of his peons to learn about this responsibility and take care of it in the future. I am thrilled, the first sign of cooperation and competent management yet. Five minutes after we get started somebody very calmly enters the room and this exchange follows:…
New guy - "Hey boss, Bob is asleep and won't wake up."
Boss - "Really?"
New guy - "Yeah, we have been shaking him, but he won't get up. We peeled back his eyelids, but his eyes are rolled back in his head."
Boss - "OK, call the emergency line."
Boss (grumbling in our direction) – "I gotta go. You guys will have to finish this."
Boss and New guy calmly walk out of the room. At this point my co-worker and I exchange looks of sheer terror as the other two government workers in the room continue as if nothing has happened. Apparently their co-worker has either gotten passed-out drunk at work or is about to die at his desk and they greet this news with the same amount of emotion one expresses when making copies, business as usual. About a minute after the boss leaves, one of the government workers notices my expression of anguished disbelief.
He explains:
Bob has been working here for about 20 years.
Bob is morbidly obese.
Bob's day at work breaks down like this: Bob comes to work, Bob immediately falls asleep, coworker wakes Bob for lunch, Bob falls asleep immediately after lunch, coworker wakes Bob at the end of the day, Bob goes home.
Sometimes, Bob goes to sleep and nobody can wake him up.
Bob's wife is called.
If Bob's wife is not too busy, she attempts to resurrect Bob with a violent beating.
In the event that Bob's wife is the least bit busy or her flagellation fails to wake Bob, the paramedics are called.
Bob is trucked to the hospital where a shot of adrenaline spurs a full recovery every time.
Bob is my new spiritual leader. He has achieved "Government Nirvana." Like Buddha and enlightenment, Bob has achieved total oneness with his apathy. He cares so little about his work and place in life that sleeping on the job has become too taxing on his person. Bob, your lack of commitment is truly an inspiration.
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
Starts when you're always afraid
Step out of line, the men come and take you away
You better stop, hey what's that sound, everybody look what's goin down...
There is one thing you really ought to reflect on this week. Halliburton has a contract to build detention centers in the United States now. Upon some random catastrophic event (or as they say in conspiracy land, a False Flag terrorist attack orchestrated by the government to start Fascism®™), then all the political subversives get taken away. This is the Angry Paranoia™ version from PropagandaMatrix: "Halliburton Detention Camps For Political Subversives" (admittedly it's funny, and I personally nearly ended up in the New York Political Dissident Holding Tank pictured, so I can relate). But this is totally for 
real. Here is the KBR/Halliburton press release:
KBR Awarded U.S. Department of Homeland Security Contingency Support Project for Emergency Support Services
ARLINGTON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 24, 2006--KBR announced today that the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) component has awarded KBR an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contingency contract to support ICE facilities in the event of an emergency......
With a maximum total value of $385 million over a five-year term, consisting of a one-year based period and four one-year options, the competitively awarded contract will be executed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Fort Worth District. KBR held the previous ICE contract from 2000 through 2005.
"We are especially gratified to be awarded this contract because it builds on our extremely strong track record in the arena of emergency operations support," said Bruce Stanski, executive vice president, KBR Government and Infrastructure. "We look forward to continuing the good work we have been doing to support our customer whenever and wherever we are needed."
The contract, which is effective immediately, provides for establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities to augment existing ICE Detention and Removal Operations (DRO) Program facilities in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs. [sounds juicy!] The contingency support contract provides for planning and, if required, initiation of specific engineering, construction and logistics support tasks to establish, operate and maintain one or more expansion facilities.
The contract may also provide migrant detention support to other U.S. Government organizations in the event of an immigration emergency, as well as the development of a plan to react to a national emergency, such as a natural disaster. In the event of a natural disaster, the contractor could be tasked with providing housing for ICE personnel performing law enforcement functions in support of relief efforts.
Ahh the Post-Nuclear Bird Flu concentration camps of North Dakota. 2008 will really be a doozy.
I am intrigued by the Russian moves on HAMAS, because Russia is always intriguing. Russia is huge, they are playing games with the energy (when they shut off the European gas, it was a clever way to remind everyone they can make the European winter very cold & expensive). Israelis are plenty pissed with Russia about the Hamas thing -- Bee stings not bear hugs in Haaretz. More on this later but I don't want to deal with it now. Raimondo on this.
Hamas Assumes Control of Parliament. On the new Hamas agenda: 'learn to queue like the British'
Meanwhile all these strange things are happening in Israel (what else is new). "Hilltop - or down-to-earth? By Avraham Burg" about the crisis of religious Zionism - the Gaza withdrawal kinda shattered the settler messianic theology of "build this settlement or God breaks out the lightning bolts for YOU." So are religious Zionists going to get pragmatic or not?
Favorite Internet List via the geniuses of GorillaMask: The 213 Things Skippy is No Longer Allowed to Do in the U.S. Army: This guy who was in psychological operations (around Albania apparently) made a list of things that were expressly forbidden - either because he did them, or was asked about it and ordered not to do said things. There are some damn good ones:
2. My proper military title is "Specialist Schwarz" not "Princess Anastasia".
3. Not allowed to threaten anyone with black magic.
4. Not allowed to challenge anyone's disbelief of black magic by asking for hair.
7. Not allowed to add “In accordance with the prophesy” to the end of answers I give to a question an officer asks me.
10. Not allowed to purchase anyone's soul on government time.
11. Not allowed to join the Communist Party.
12. Not allowed to join any militia.
13. Not allowed to form any militia.
14. Not allowed out of my office when the president visited Sarajevo.
20. Must not taunt the French any more.
21. Must attempt to not antagonize SAS.
22. Must never call an SAS a “Wanker”.
23. Must never ask anyone who outranks me if they've been smoking crack.
24. Must not tell any officer that I am smarter than they are, especially if it's true.
26. Never tell a German soldier that “We kicked your ass in World War 2!”
29. The Irish MPs are not after “Me frosted lucky charms”.
31. Not allowed to let sock puppets take responsibility for any of my actions.
32. Not allowed to let sock puppets take command of my post.
41. “Keep on Trucking” is *not* a psychological warfare message.
44. I am not the atheist chaplain.
49. Not allowed to trade military equipment for “magic beans”.
51. Not allowed to quote “Dr Seuss” on military operations.
54. “Napalm sticks to kids” is *not* a motivational phrase.
58. The following words and phrases may not be used in a cadence- Budding sexuality, necrophilia, I hate everyone in this formation and wish they were dead, sexual lubrication, black earth mother, all Marines are latent homosexuals, Tantric yoga, Gotterdammerung, Korean hooker, Eskimo Nell, we've all got jackboots now, slut puppy, or any references to squid.
59. May not make posters depicting the leadership failings of my chain of command.
60. “The Giant Space Ants” are not at the top of my chain of command.
66. There is no “Anti-Mime” campaign in Bosnia.
67. I am not the Psychological Warfare Mascot.
68. I may not line my helmet with tin foil to “Block out the space mind control lasers”.
69. May not pretend to be a fascist stormtrooper, while on duty.
71. I must not flaunt my deviances in front of my chain of command.
75. May not conduct psychological experiments on my chain of command.
84. Must not use military vehicles to “Squish” things.
85. Not allowed to make any Psychological Warfare products depicting the infamous Ft. Bragg sniper incident.
94. Crucifixes do not ward off officers, and I should not test that.
106. I may not trade my rifle for any of the following: Cigarettes, booze, sexual favors, Kalishnikovs, Soviet Armored vehicles, small children, or bootleg CD’s.
140. I am not authorized to sell mineral rights.
155. Teaching Albanian children to taunt other soldiers is not nice.
158. The revolution is not now.
162. Past lives have absolutely no effect on the chain of command.
174. Furby ® is not allowed into classified areas. (I swear to the gods, I did not make that up, it's actually DOD policy).
198. Not allowed to lead a “Coup” during training missions.
I was a bit suspicious this was recently written by some recruiter-like guy to make the military seem more palatable, but it's apparently quite a few years old, and he's not in the military any more. It is too bad they are tangled up in all this mess - really such sarcasm ought to be the general mission. Mineral rights?
Blogs are getting big at the U for classwork. Strib website is messed up. Can you believe it takes three steps to even find the index of reporters & staff?
If you can do this ridiculous bouncing object thing for more than 18 seconds, you are amazing.
United Arab Emirates chosen for sub-orbital tourism spaceport. What more can I say?
Christopher Hitchens is a fat boozy British son of a bitch who has believed in everyone from Trotsky to Wolfowitz. Which admittedly isn't very far. But between bottles of scotch he likes to act like some kind of demented nanny: "Garrison Keillor, Vulgarian". Who cares? I don't know. Sorry I wasted your time.
The Recording Industry Jihad. They are trying to screw everyone using the DMCA to say that you can't make backups of your own CDs, as they claim this is basically the same as piracy. So, for them, "Freedom" means "if you break your CD, you are free to go to Sam Goody and Buy a New One," rather than the current legal arrangement, "you are allowed to make fucking backups, because this is not East Germany."
The [submitted arguments in favor of granting exemptions to the DMCA] provide no arguments or legal authority that making back up copies of CDs is a noninfringing use. In addition, the submissions provide no evidence that access controls are currently preventing them from making back up copies of CDs or that they are likely to do so in the future.
A bit more here.
The Onion: Senate Ethics Committee To Meet In New Ethics Committee Mansion.
Sorry that's all for now. Happy Mattress Sale Day.
It appears that a trojan horse called usually called "latestpics.tgz" made it into the Mac OS X world, but it doesn't work like a typical Windows virus or Worm - though it attempts to spread itself through iChat.
It is called Oompa-Loompa or "OSX/Oomp-A" for now, as deemed by one Andrew in the Ambrosia Software forums. This forum thread has literally all the gory details of how it works. It has also been classified as OSX/Leap-A. It originally appeared on MacRumors.com as supposed "pictures of Mac OS X Leopard 10.5", and here is their look at it. The slashdot crowd says it's more FUD (Fear Uncertainty & Doubt) really. And i tend to agree. Notes from the Day in the Life of an Information Security Investigator. In the WaPo Brian Krebs reports on it. Those links should tell you everything. But if you want to hear my ramble on a bit more, follow along....
[this became a bit longer than I intended, but I hope it explains how viruses work generally - and why OS X works all right to prevent this shit. It is relevant to your life. And then you can get into the Matrix.]
I am by no means a professional expert, but I have to deal with this shit, and there are good reasons that Unix and Mac OS X are preferred to Windows by lots of security professionals.
The amount of damage that computer viruses do consists of one thing in particular: propagation: The technical method of reproduction and how it transmits. Duh ok. If it can copy itself without any humans 'clicking OK' on a dialog box, viruses can spread far and wide. If they exploit holes in the memory structure to avoid the safeguards, that's really the key method -- and is NOT the problem for Apple today.
The famous Nimda/Code Red worms, which infected millions of Windows computers running IIS webservers, worked because there were "magic request" that an infected computer could make towards the target IIS webserver -- this let the worm overflow the usual safeguards and insert the self-propagating code. [More details here]
Read on for some more about it.
It also hit email systems by tricking the user or Microsoft Internet Explorer to executing a binary file: Cert advisory:
any mail software running on an x86 platform that uses Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 SP1 or earlier (except IE 5.01 SP2) to render the HTML mail automatically runs the enclosed attachment and, as result, infects the machine with the worm. Thus, in vulnerable configurations, the worm payload will automatically be triggered by simply opening (or previewing) this mail message. As an executable binary, the payload can also be triggered by simply running the attachment.
A normal HTTP request - the bit of text that your browser sends a webserver in order to receive a webpage looks like so:
GET /farms/side_125x125/advertise_125x125.jpg
is a browser request for a JPEG. With me so far?
But the webserver viruses like Code Red used special GET commands that sneak through a flaw in the way that the Webserver handles that very command. The virus writers wrote a program that sent a huge GET command -- and the content of the command itself spills out of the memory location in the webserver RAM. Then the end of the command are actually instructions (machine code) that let the virus take over the computer. This repeats a million zillion times, and you get an epidemic.
The trick is that Microsoft forgot to make sure that the little memory container for the "GET" string didn't spill out of control - called a "buffer overflow" that isn't detected and stopped. That is the vulnerability enabling the method of propagation. When new buffer overflow methods are discovered, a flurry of viruses are written in the Windows world, yet somehow Mac OS X has been essentially immune from this. Why? One sec. First, the method Example from this HP Labs report on Code Red:
The Code Red payload..... is a HTTP GET request for filetype.ida. The .ida extension is mapped by IIS to cause the indexing service (IDA module) to run on that filetype. The vulnerability that the virus exploits is a buffer overflow. The “NNN” is padding to increase the size of the request in order to overflow the buffer, and the Unicode characters are machine code to coerce IIS into running the binary payload.
GET /default.ida?NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN%u9090%u6858%ucbd3%u7801
%u9090%u6858%ucbd3%u7801%u9090%u6858%ucbd3%u7801%u9090
%u9090%u8190%u00c3%u0003%u8b00%u531
b%u53ff%u0078%u0000%u00=a
[binary payload] Figure 2: Code Red HTTP Request. It is a buffer overflow attack on the indexing service (default.ida)
And then these infected computers attack everyone else. I saw about a million of these hit hongpong.com when things were really bad. Here is a Dutch graphic from Funktionsprinzipien von Sabotagesoftware. Whatever that means. Just use your damn imagination.
But somehow this kind of shit never really fucks with Linux or OS X. Why?
Well for one thing, in Linux people make custom programs - especially the Apache web server engine. When you compile Apache, your individual program is unique in how it's put together. This is like genetic diversity in a way. Plus the overflow bugs seemed to be taken care of better, and just don't appear in Linux as much as Windows.
But what about Desktops? Yah. OS X does not yet have any real viruses. A lot of the core of the system is protected, and before any programs can alter it, it asks you for your password. It is perfectly possible to write a program that will erase all your files and email itself to everyone, but OS X will still ask you for your password before the OS will erase itself.
This is assuming that the underlying instructions can't be tricked or misdirected, and in some ways, they can. For example, apparently a lot of legit OS X programs that DO need the admin password, expose the password through a part of the system that is visible to all the other programs, via the "ps" or "top" activity monitoring programs for example. [this is how it works]
Hypothetical exploit: Thus a little virus that was somehow already running could wait and listen for the password via 'ps', then it would have the root pass, and it could finally break all the way into your system. But that would be STILL rely on your password to get there -- and it is a pretty thin reed to rest a working virus on.
Ok... this is taking too long to not really explain anything. Finally, a big difference between Windows and OS X is that if you are a Windows administrator, programs can do a lot of shit without asking for your password. On OS X, it also asks you if it is OK to run programs you've never run.
Today's OS X Trojan: This Trojan does not sneak through a buffer overflow, like dangerous Windows viruses. If you agree to let this "latestpics.tgz" program - whose icon looks like a Jpeg - run, AND you type in your root password, THEN it will overwrite some applications - making them unlaunchable - and it will insert itself in some places on your computer. And try to propagate through iChat.
I mean, what the hell is the Operating system supposed to offer to protect itself, besides asking for your password?
If it could make itself run as soon as it appeared in OS X Mail, and send itself to everyone else, and infect iChat, without asking for your password, then it would be a threat. This requires people to "push it along" and even the average Mac user probably won't type in their password -- but then again, Mac users aren't used to catching this kind of thing.
But of course, warning pop-ups appear when your download executable files. This is crucial. As long as Apple continues to fix discovered buffer overflows and designs its OS in a way that denies random code from executing and sneaking into shit (the Big If) we'll be ok. And laughing at all the infected PCs.
Just look at the record. It's not bad. 60,000 viruses for Windows, 40 for the original Macintosh (pre-OS X), 40 for Linux. It is totally structural. It is not just because "no one tries" to make them for Linux or OS X.
On the Steps...
...Of the Wyoming State Capitol, where the illustrious vice president of the United States will speak with fanfare on the morrow morn. Peace Brother. Damn the torpedos.
--Peter
pgartrellNOSPAMPLEASE@gillettenewsrecord.net
Energy/County Reporter
Gillette News-Record
P.O. Box 3006
Gillette, WY 82717
Tele: (307) 682-9306 x211
FAX: (307) 686-9306
It is obvious that he is wearing his safety orange for the event, but from his high perch here he could be mistaken for a bird.
We are hoping for the best for Peter. O Very Unique JudeoChristian God of North and South Carolina, Keep his head down and the Kevlar tight.
*Amen*
I'm dead serious, download and play the Mortal Kombat theme song before you read the next post. They go together like grilled cheese and tomato soup.
Leroy Babolian?
FINISH HIM!!
I Will Perform Many Covert Ninja Operations on Targets Unsuspecting
Hello,
I am coming to you from deep in my underground Dojo, an impenetrable fortress coddled on springs under 5,000 feet of bedrock. Day and night here I train, lathered in sweat while completing challenging maneuvers in tight cinematic sequences. I shoot and arm wrestle and do backflips; sometimes I garotte targets unsuspecting whilst they attempt to surveil my pad. I am no longer able to leave my Dojo very much due to the number of highly-skilled warriors looking for me "up there", but the arrangement has its advantages; while I have missed the chance to more readily apply my incredible fighting prowess in order to uphold justice and attract women, the reinforced steel walls in my blast-proof training center are the only surface thus far that has been able to absorb my punishing blows, thus allowing me to kick my already extreme neo-ninja self training up a notch. The passionate devotion I show for my way of life has given me great focus and, in turn, extreme mastery of the deadly martial arts.
I am now ready to face off with the best. I truly believe that under the withering fusillade of fists, almost no one could last for even a moment before being torn to pieces, laid waist by Badger Fist stance and in awe of the breathtaking aerial display that immediately proceeds the dealing of a deadly blow. Soon, I will begin, slowly at first, using my powers for the forces of goodness and purity, fighting the dregs of society in their own neighborhoods and hangouts- seedy lamp-lit joints with tawdry, disheartening embroidery fringing on the tattered, garishly colored lampshades. The sickness I feel towards those who spread evil and disharmony has transformed itself into both a mission in life and an outlet for my bewildering abilities in the arena of hand-to-hand combat.
I can't tell you when I will next communicate with you, if ever I do again. The information I will be privy to in my increased capacity as the protector of human decency for the entire globe won't leave me much time to go otter fishing, nor will I most likely attend weekly pizza and porn session from this point onward. At any rate, I am writing in order for you to wish me luck in my endeavors and, if circumstances allow, I will attempt to convey by some means that I am, indeed, alive and still on my quest for justice and equality.
Farewell (?)
Leroy Babolian
Technorati Tags: Leroy Babolian, the deadly arts
Well it had to happen finally. Those naughty Pakistanis trashed Ronald McDonald, thus finally giving life to the "Jihad vs. McWorld" thesis of Benjamin Barber.
You may notice the array of icons along the side, to indicate our expanding circle of contributors. I won't ask anyone to do anything on a regular basis, just whenever they feel like it. I also did a little CSS trickery to get the appropriate icons to appear next to our posts, which should add a certain ego-projection/avatarity quality to things, helping to disambiguate us and provide a more amusing environment for the site.
My own avatar is India's fourth prime minister, Morarju Ranchhodji Desai (1896-1995), the first leader not from the Congress Party. A Brahmin from Gujarat, he was selected to lead the Janata Party in 1977, at the age of 81. Apparently he drank a cup of his own urine every day and lived to be 99.
If anyone else wants in on the gig email me. Or if anyone wants their icons changed.
I am working on a badass Politics In Minnesota thing right now so I won't write further, but I wanted to take my new Icon out for a spin.
Intellectually Upstaged but not Down For the Count
Vanilla Gorilla's emergence in our steamy little web-jungle is welcome, not least of all because he is a very serious and astute student of global policy and politicking. While I look forward to more posts from him, I also hope that he can lay a little of his less serious side on these pages, too, because he happens to also have a much quicker wit and droller delivery than almost anyone I know.
I, on the other hand, am a complete ass. Loud, vain and with permanent earplugs, I have little to offer in the way of serious exegesis on the state of the world. However, I spend a lot of time on the internet, have a rather remarkable capacity for useless fact retention and a lot of free time on my hands. Therefore, I am going to take a different tack and dole out large helpings of some of the topics du jour on the American media scene. So, without further ado,
Cartoons, Gay Cowboys and... Human/Deity Hybrids!
Cartoons: By all we know of the deadly rioting in the Muslim world surrounding a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed wearing a bomb in place of a turban. This cartoon, though first published literally months ago, has recently been used by a number of self-interested parties in the Mohammed-loving regions of the world (read: places we bomb) to whip the citizenry into a frenzy and cause fatal riots and the destruction of much life, limb, property, etc., etc. Many high- and low-minded ideals, from freedom of speech to the maintenance of the status quo, have been furthered in attack and defense of these cartoons, with most Westerners siding with their publishing on the grounds of the cartoonist's right to free expression.
Though I am sure the cartoonist cares more for the stopping capabilities of different kevlar vests at the moments than his own ability to freely communicate his racist beliefs, freedom of the press is a sacred cow of the West for good reason, and standing firm in the face of these riots is the necessary measure. The management of the French papers have, as is the habit in their country, capitulated and fired the editors who decided to run the cartoon, but the Danish government, the leaders of the country that first ran the piece, have stuck to their guns. Hurrah for them, but in the ensuing debate the stench of fetid hypocrisy is the overbearing odor in the room.
Before we go any further, let's take a look at the offending image. [I have officially 'gone French' regarding posting this image on my site. I promise to explain fully. --Dan]
My first thought upon seeing the actual image was "European political cartoonists suck at their job." See, the political cartoon is not the venerable art form that it is in America. There are fewer of them in the pages of their papers, and they are remarkable predominantly for their toothlessness in comparison with their American counterparts. While this piece is uninspiring as an art object, it certainly doesn't disappoint in the provocation department. Problem is, and this is not the cartoonist's fault, but it merely offered up an opportunity for both sides to engage in the very behavior that created the stereotypes that make up this piece in the first place.
In order to protest their stereotyping as violent religious extremists, Muslims across the world ripped up their cities, setting consulates and embassies alight while clashing amongst themselves in clashes that eventually claimed lives in several countries. In turn, the Western countries were given an opportunity to point out this very fact in a sort of "well, ain't cha?" manner that only served to further enrage the enraged, as evidenced by the fact that the riots are still ongoing. Americans and Europeans smugly declared how sacrosanct the freedom of speech and expression was to their way of life, and how the cartoon spat was simply unavoidable given the inevitable outcome of the societal rights?
Is this sounding reasonable so far to you? We have a free press, they can publish what they want, right?
Only if it offensive to some, it would seem. You see, the Joint Chiefs of Staff recently protested a cartoon by Tom Toles in the Washington Post, claiming it was improperly making light of the plight of American soldiers who are injured in battle.
Clearly, the cartoon was criticizing Massa Rummy's use of language at a congressional hearing when he chose to describe the overburdened American occupational force in Iraq as 'battle-hardened' rather than "spread thin", as had been suggested to him. The Post is sticking by their man, and both the article and the cartoon can be seen here.
I'll let you decide, but not really, because the right answer is that it is almost impossible to hear over the dissonant noise between the response to the Mohammed cartoon and the Rummy cartoon. The same knee-jerk neocons who were first in line to support the rights of the Danish cartoonist whose piece was, in fact, rather needlessly inflammatory, with the American cartoonist who was criticizing the Secretary of Defense over wartime policy using his own words. While the Danish cartoon isn't really anything more than an stereotype rendered in watercolor, Tom Toles had a point.
Now, I would point out here that I am an avid reader of political cartoons. I think that they are one art form that is truly unique to America and that can, when properly rendered, walk the thin line between giving offense and commenting acerbically on the political process. Some of the best American cartoonists even have weekly columns to accompany their cartoons, an acknowledgment on the part of their publishers that they are opinion columnists with pens. Pat Oliphant (who was actually Hunter Thompson's first choice as the illustrator for his magazine articles, a job that eventually went to Ralph Steadman, of course) is a TV commentator, a cartoonist AND an opinion columnist, on top of being, as my girlfriend says, "the most adorable man in the world."
The best response to these cartoon rows has really been from cartoonists- I suggest Tom Tomorrow's cartoon in Salon this week.
Of course, on a certain base level, 'The West' is really 'In the Right' on this one- this is a bloody cartoon, fer chrissakes, and it would not have hurt anyone were people to ignore it. As for the religious issue, it is hard to believe something so mild as Jesus lobbing a bomb would spark off riots. In fact, Jesus has probably appeared in thousands of offensive cartoons, with nary a riot in protest, a record of restraint that is admirable considering the dingbats in this country. To demonstrate my point, I want to show you a Jesus parody that I am personally quite taken with:
Gay Cowboys- Just as a parting shot, I would like to plug Willie Nelson's new song, "Cowboys are often secretly fond of each other". He debuted it on a (confusing, I'm sure) Howard Stern show today. Willie said this song has been sitting in the closet, in the literal sense, since 1981, when he received it from the songwriter, one Mr. Ned Sublette. This would be unremarkable were Ned Sublette not a frequent contributor to BoingBoing and the brother of my boss, a Mr. Mark Sublette, owner of Medicine Man Gallery in Tucson, AZ. Ned is now an expert on Afro-Caribbean music and a fine photographer. His photography can be seen at the Medicine Man site.
[We have picked up another contributor, Vanilla Gorilla. VG will provide us with specialized and unorthodox commentary on economics and African politics, in particular. We are filling up fast - if anyone else wants in email me --Dan]
One of the questions I frequently ask myself is why Americans, though seemingly dissatisfied (some intensely) with the current government, do nothing to change it? It seems to me that if European countries with no insurmountable differences in cultural traditions or legal practices can survive tolerably with different accountability systems, why can't we? Or yet another way of putting it is to ask why there is such low accountability for the American government? This bothers the crap out of me, because, as we all well know, voters are suffering from an acute case of the political equivalent of buyer's remorse.
As I was slogging through some particularly boring academic articles on the economic nature of the firm, I came across a hidden gem of a topic: appropriable quasi rents. OK, I admit it, whatever it is does not sound sexy, is not related to any terrorist group, and will not attract government spooks to swarm the server. But I do think it has some explanatory power with regard to America's busted democracy. But before I start, I'd like to preempt that terrible joke you were going to make by saying that the term quasi-rent has nothing to do with any half animal hybrids living in the apartment down the hall. [Dan: Bush put a stop to that, thank Jesus]
The definition of an appropriable quasi rent can best be seen through an example. Consider an oil field and a refinery connected by a pipeline, all owned by separate parties. The pipeline buys from the oil field, and sells it to the refinery. In this scenario, the pipeline has both the refinery and the oil field held hostage. It has to pay the oil field only as much as the field could sell the oil to someone else for, which is not much because they have no way of moving the oil without the pipeline. Likewise, it will charge the refinery up to the amount that it would cost to get their crude outside the pipeline. Quasi rent refers to the difference between the value of the oil to the pipeline and the amount at which another buyer/seller could offer an alternative transaction. In this case, the pipeline appropriates all of both rents, innit?
Here is the NY strip: Isn't the government pushing harder and harder in a exactly symmetrical situation? The cost of revolution is incalculable, but the costs of a less dramatic change are substantial as well. Political change isn't as simple as politely asking Canada to come to dinner and please bring their low crime and good healthcare. We are faced with a high cost of alternatives, and thus we are being "charged" a higher and higher portion of our well-being as a result.
It is difficult to think of an aspect of governance that doesn't bear this out, from rising economic inequality due to tax/corporate policy, to loss of life and freedom under the auspices of the war on terror. Hell, if you don't feel like the no-bid contract to Halliburton was Cheney's way of cock-slapping you in the face, I won't be able to convince you of this fact. The truly sad thing is that this is only one way of warming over the leftovers of every social scientist since at least Machiavelli.
In this respect, though, the issue isn't limited to corpulent America, the whole world gets in on the dish. Those precocious Neocons have shown that they're willing to oppress anybody to satisfy their desires, and as such, everyone else needs to decide how much their willing to pay for an alternative. Who's it going to be, China? Some EU-like creature going to step up? Iran got the nuts to stand up? Or can everybody just stand pat? As a parting shot, I think it is interesting that many Americans, who are *supposed* to be willing to sacrifice freedom only at death, live tiny lives hedged into unrewarding careers etc., while a supposedly oppressed society in need of our liberation is full of people willing to pay the ultimate price for their liberty.
[Score 1,000,000,000 bonus points for Vanilla Gorilla. Anything involving pipelines is genius! Right on. --Dan]
Lots of people in Minnesota have seen these "Midwest Heroes" ads by now. They remind us of how Al Qaeda in Iraq is trying to destroy America. Well done. Who is plunking the cash down? The "Progress for America Voter Fund," run by such luminaries as Ken Mehlman, the director of the Republican National Committee, and various Swift Boat conspirators.
Nick Coleman called it the Swift Boating of Iraq, otherwise Swift Boating in reverse. Also a bit here. Hindrocket applauds that "My own guess is that liberals aren't afraid that the Midwest Heroes are wrong. They're afraid they're right."
So the oddity is that on my boss' radio show, one of the guys, Stephenson I think, was on there, and of course Janecek praised him, while Lambert was more critical. But what sort of media transaction is this? Why is this message an ad buy? Who is pushing it?? Well the director of the Republican Party. That simple.
PFA has some really nice Republican attack ads from 2004 on their site. "Why do we fight?" is cheesy. "Finish it" has a really funny part at the end. "John Kerry has a 30 Year Record of Cuts in Defense and Intelligence and Endlessly Changing Positions on Iraq. Would You Trust Kerry up against these fanatic killers. President Bush didn't start this war, but he will finish it."
Which I think is especially amusing because he sure as fuck won't finish it. Well, it would be amusing if it weren't a national disaster. My point is that this is a 527-style wing of the Republican attack machine. And they are using Minnesota as their test TV market for November.
They offer this on MidwestHeroes.com and the PFAVoterFund site:
About PFA Voter Fund
Some politicians are working overtime to push their failed policies on America and distort the accomplished public policy records of conservative leaders across this nation. These policies thwart the ability of American families to support the War on Terror, keep more of what they earn, provide a safe environment for educating their children, and continue to expand employment and grow the economy.
Progress for America Voter Fund ("PFA-VF") is a conservative issue advocacy organization dedicated to setting the issue record straight about these critical issues.
Here are the goals of the PFA-VF:
1. Level the playing field on issue advertisements — it may not be possible out raise even George Soros alone, but the PFA Voter Fund must try to reduce the lopsided advertising advantage that liberal 527s have on the campaign trail today.
2. Reinforce the messages of conservatives across the nation -- we have messages we know will work and energize the base; we just need the resources to deliver these messages.
As a diverse coalition of concerned citizens, nonprofit organizations, and other players in the political process, PFA-VF is dedicated to educating the American people regarding the public policy positions of candidates for federal, state and local office and mobilizing conservative voters. These activities provide the American people with the information they need to see through the misleading public policies and campaign themes of liberal politicians.
Well there ya go. Good times. If only we could get George Soros to keep ruining everything, liberals could finally take over.
Hello to the rest of America, this is like $10 billion dollars in November's generic Republican attack ads distilled to about 30 seconds. Set your brains on "drool" and prepare to be bombarded 600,000 times.
It doesn't get any more pure than this. But wait!! Look at all this fucking progress in Iraq!!!! Thanks MidwestHeroes, for giving us this Stuff that The Bush Hater Liberal Media Wants To Hide!!
“Iraqi Students Now Carry Laptops That Connect At Internet Cafes To The World’s Web Sites And Libraries Where Before They Had To Rely On Pencils, Slide Rules And Outdated -- Often Censored -- School Textbooks.” (Robert M. Kimmitt, “Iraq’s Post-Saddam Economy,” The Wall Street Journal, 12/9/05)
“Iraq Is Laying The Groundwork For A Self-Sustaining, Market-Based Economy.” “Only a year-and-a-half after regaining its full sovereignty, Iraq is laying the groundwork for a self-sustaining, market-based economy which can serve as an engine of growth for that nation and for the broader Middle East.” (Robert M. Kimmitt, Op-Ed, “Iraq’s Post-Saddam Economy,” The Wall Street Journal, 12/9/05)
“Iraq’s economy is expected to grow by nearly 4% this year and accelerate to nearly 17% in 2006.” (Robert M. Kimmitt, Op-Ed, “Iraq’s Post-Saddam Economy,” The Wall Street Journal, 12/9/05)
“Per capita income should soon exceed $1,000 -- nearly double the level in 2003.” (Robert M. Kimmitt, Op-Ed, “Iraq’s Post-Saddam Economy,” The Wall Street Journal, 12/9/05)
“More than 30,000 new businesses have been registered and many have set up shop.” (Robert M. Kimmitt, Op-Ed, “Iraq’s Post-Saddam Economy,” The Wall Street Journal, 12/9/05)
There are also lots of Department of Defense Press releases, and quotes from an editorial in the Indianapolis Star!!
This is some kind of joint project of the "Families United for our Troops and their Mission", whatever precisely that is. I started drifting over their blog and found this chestnut.
Monday, February 06, 2006: Information Warfare
Information warfare, what’s the big deal? Gold Star families are working to tell their stories to anyone willing to listen, including the media. One Gold Star mom said this of her husband, “He would talk to the moon about our son”. One reason we tell their stories is to keep the memories of our loved ones alive. Another reason is to continue to serve our country.
The battle continues to be waged, at home and abroad. Every war is fought on two fronts. Every war must be won on two fronts-the battlefield and the field of public opinion. President Lincoln set down the perimeters of the battle when he said, “With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed.”
We will win the War on Terror, on the battlefield. We must continue to share the successes of the war in the media so that the public opinion is not swayed for defeat by misinformation on the home front.
“The American Enterprise” March, 2006, published an article written by John Guardiano. The article entitled, Information Warfare, stated: “Like most veterans of the war, I am amazed and dismayed at the relentlessly negative—and very misleading—media portrait of our efforts.” He cited this example, “Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan is a media cause celebrity; but Diane Ibbotson, Debby Argel Bastion, and countless other mothers who have lost their sons (and daughters) and continue to support the war are ignored. This despite the fact that they are more articulate and serious –minded than Sheehan, with personal stories that are just as compelling.”
So we “soldier on” in the cause that our loved ones gave their lives for, to win the battle on the home front that our Armed Forces are winning on the battlefields. We will continue to tell the stories of America’s fallen heroes, of veterans service and sacrifice, of the resolve of families who support the military and their mission.
Posted by Diane Ibbotson @ 11:55 AM
And Ken Mehlman is master of Information Operations.
...I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in...
My condition is: Lots of Wisdom Tooth Vicodin + I hate Valentines Day.I have been laying low and taking Vicodin after my wisdom teeth operation on Wednesday. That's five straight days of codeine, and my moods are kind of weird and raw by this point.
Introducing:
From the depths of the Intarweb comes a shadowy character known only as Pixeldusted. S/He works in the shadows, interacting with the most arcane and mysterious parts of a vast and sprawling industrial complex.
Well sort of. I'll leave it to Dusty to explain. Pixeldusted is not a fictional character, though of course, in the current climate of Information Operations, a reader cannot assume such things.
So currently our stable of contributors includes:
And that's about it. Any of our regular visitors (and irregular confused lookers-on) are invited to contact me at NOdan.feidtSPAM@gmail.com if they would like to get an account here. I am trying to expand the operation a bit here. I have the inklings of long-term plan to design a better site. I would like to get friends contributing. There are no real hard and fast rules about it, because I don't really care that much. But I know a lot of smart people that could add some stuff.
So along with this polite general invitation to the visiting public, please keep my heavy recent course of painkillers in mind when reading the rest of this post.
Because yes, the structure of the site is antiquated and needs to be replaced. The HongWiki is probably not long for this world -- I look towards a better Content Management System setup like WordPress. In my day job, I am designing a new site for Politics in Minnesota's campaign coverage. Once that is done, I will actually have a very useful template for a new HongPong.com. Sweet.
*******
I looked at my web server logs for the first time in a while, and it turns out that well, things are going pretty well on the site. We are averaging 744 visits a day in February, of which I would estimate that 30% are spammers and 30% are search engines, but that's a rough estimate.
Here are the most popular search phrases of the last 13 days: (hits, then percentages)
And i don't even have the damn cartoons. Or a Mamoon falafel. Last month's search phrases were sort of funny:
"Amadeus Pegasus Watchtower" being the supposed three names of the CIA programs bringing cocaine into the United States, which Ruppert claimed to uncover (as we noted earlier). HongPong.com is now like #5 for that on Google.
U.S. Concludes 'Cyber Storm' Mock Attacks By TED BRIDIS
The Associated Press / Friday, February 10, 2006; 8:37 PM
WASHINGTON -- The government concluded its "Cyber Storm" wargame Friday, its biggest-ever exercise to test how it would respond to devastating attacks over the Internet from anti-globalization activists, underground hackers and bloggers.
Bloggers?
Participants confirmed parts of the worldwide simulation challenged government officials and industry executives to respond to deliberate misinformation campaigns and activist calls by Internet bloggers, online diarists whose "Web logs" include political rantings and musings about current events.[......]
There was no impact on the real Internet during the weeklong exercise. Government officials from the United States, Canada, Australia and England and executives from Microsoft, Cisco, Verisign and others said they were careful to simulate attacks only using isolated computers, working from basement offices at the Secret Services headquarters in downtown Washington.
[.....]Homeland Security coordinated the exercise. More than 115 government agencies, companies and organizations participated. They included the White House National Security Council, Justice Department, Defense Department, State Department, National Security Agency and CIA, which conducted its own cybersecurity exercise called "Silent Horizon" last May.
An earlier cyberterrorism exercise called "Livewire" for Homeland Security and other federal agencies concluded there were serious questions over government's role during a cyberattack depending on who was identified as the culprit _ terrorists, a foreign government or bored teenagers.
It also questioned whether the U.S. government would be able to detect the early stages of such an attack without significant help from private technology companies. [I sense a Blackwater Offensive Hacking contract in the works -Dan]
Please recall the "Fight the Net" Defense Department concept in the "Information Operations Roadmap" (PDF) from earlier. Let's add a bit from the BBC:
A newly declassified document gives a fascinating glimpse into the US military's plans for "information operations" - from psychological operations, to attacks on hostile computer networks.
Bloggers beware.
As the world turns networked, the Pentagon is calculating the military opportunities that computer networks, wireless technologies and the modern media offer. From influencing public opinion through new media to designing "computer network attack" weapons, the US military is learning to fight an electronic war.
[.......]
The operations described in the document include a surprising range of military activities: public affairs officers who brief journalists, psychological operations troops who try to manipulate the thoughts and beliefs of an enemy, computer network attack specialists who seek to destroy enemy networks.
All these are engaged in information operations.
Perhaps the most startling aspect of the roadmap is its acknowledgement that information put out as part of the military's psychological operations, or Psyops, is finding its way onto the computer and television screens of ordinary Americans.
"Information intended for foreign audiences, including public diplomacy and Psyops, is increasingly consumed by our domestic audience," it reads. "Psyops messages will often be replayed by the news media for much larger audiences, including the American public," it goes on.
The document's authors acknowledge that American news media should not unwittingly broadcast military propaganda. "Specific boundaries should be established," they write. But they don't seem to explain how.
"In this day and age it is impossible to prevent stories that are fed abroad as part of psychological operations propaganda from blowing back into the United States - even though they were directed abroad," says Kristin Adair of the National Security Archive.
So your own [American] brain is a target of military spending.
Accidentally.
Tax dollars >> Military-engineered thoughts.
Now that's what I call a feedback loop of sinister proportions. As for this site, well, it got 57 hits from the military just so far this month.
Jane Cat had surgery to repair his hematoma on the same day as my Wisdom Teeth, and the feline is now kinda tired, and pretty dusty. Tragic that a cat gets dusty when it can't groom its face.
Here, through my hydrocodone haze, Jane Cat is grabbing onto "Crossing the Rubicon" by Michael Ruppert, the conspiratorial work of parapolitical mega-non-fiction leading up to "Cheney did 9/11". I had pulled out this weird book because an old high school friend randomly stopped by today, and we talked about the likelihood that Wellstone was assassinated.
Could he have been Done In?
"People have been killed for less," I said. And Ruppert has an extended conspiracy theory about the subject, included in his book and featured on FromTheWilderness.com (and a followup). I tend to favor the electromagnetic pulse weapon theory – which explains the cell phone anomalies in northern Minnesota that day.
(My photo from a peace march in St. Paul on March 23, 2003)
The leading book on the Wellstone assassination theory, though, is apparently American Assassination by Don Jacobs and Jim Fetzer, a U of M professor. From a review:
Since becoming active in this issue, local residents have contacted Dr. Fetzer and related strange electronic interference in the area at the time of the crash. One experienced an odd cell-phone phenomenon with a form of noise unlike any he had heard before.
Its auditory pattern appears consistent with the use of "electro-magnetic" (EM) weapons developed by the Pentagon to take out computerized systems and wreak harm on human targets. It was part of the plan to bring down the plane using kinds of weapons of which most Americans are unaware.
These weapons can disable radio communications, stall warning systems, course deviation indicator, and electrical switches controlling the pitch of the props, causing substantial loss of control. They can render persons unconscious, incapable of muscle control, or even bring about their death.
In the wake of the crash, 69% of Minnesotans blamed a "GOP conspiracy" for Wellstone’s death.
I want to know where that statistic came from.
I got an oil change today and the mechanic noted my Wellstone bumper sticker. "We were just talking the other day about how great he was," she said. "It's always brought me good luck," I said. "Never been pulled over as long as its been on there."
And it is worth noting again that Wellstone was the only Democratic Senator to vote against the war who faced election that November. His political "survival" — assured in polls just before the election – posed a grave threat to the rationale for war - the rational public of Minnesota threatened to upset the spectacle.
And then there was all that damn bad weather (or not). Wellstone was afraid of planes, that's why he had the bus. And he was once sprayed with coca defoliant in Colombia. Tangle with the Establishment's cocaine friends in the Global South, who even knows what trouble you'd get into...
Amadeus, Pegasus, Watchtower. Information Operations.
The Vice President shoots a man, and they cover it up for 22 hours just for shits and giggles.
Time for another Vicodin. Official candy of Valentine's Day 2006.
"My Gun Doesn't Even Have a Safety"
Dick Cheney Strokes his Artillery
A news item more perfect than I could have dreamed up on a good day, via CNN.com:
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and wounded a companion during a weekend quail hunting trip in Texas, spraying the fellow hunter in the face and chest with shotgun pellets.
What can I even say to this? Clearly the man's political and personal styles are similar, something along the lines of "shoot first..." At least he has just become the first one of the architects of the Iraq War to have ever fired a gun at another human being. It appears that the wounded man is a millionaire Austin attorney named Harry Whittington who has been active in Texas Republican politics since the 1950s. Though the incident could not immediately be confirmed as karmic, it does not appear to be fatal. Whittington, according to the ranch's owner, a Mr. Armstrong (I skimmed it, so sue me) was "peppered pretty good", something that, according to Mr. Armstrong, "happens from time to time" presumably because Cheney cannot go too long between expressions of his bloodlust. What else could be to blame for this? Rap music? Terrorists? Maybe Mr. Whittington's Bush-Cheney '04 check was not supplemented by the usual soft money donations from business associates? Who knows? Knowing Cheney, any mention of the incident will be disappeared before the paper hits the stands tomorrow morning.
Jealous, Anyone?
Here's where I had brunch today, at the lovely Arizona Inn here in Tucson, Arizona. Right in the middle of this rather poorly-kept desert city, a fantastic 1930 resort oasis. I had a Reuben, my darling girlfriend had the club sandwich and we took a walk around the lush grounds afterwards to work off the mayo and thousand islands. It was about eighty degrees out today, cloudless and dry, and I walked around the Fourth Avenue Bike Fair and watched a guy on a Hayubusa put down 186hp on a mobile dyno- cool. I am currently blogging (now that I am blogging, do I have to bitch about the term blogging?) from out-of-doors, on the patio of my place. With the whorled ribbons of incense and meth smoke entwining around me, my creative juices are set flowing in this, the portion of the year where the desert turns from foe to friend and the angry sun becomes the sustainer of lives of leisure. Leisure is kind of the theme in the coming months or so, as I am taking trips to the Baja Peninsula and, for the first and probably last time, Las Vegas, Nevada.
When not traveling, though, I will be here, planted at my laptop (or "Enlightenment Disseminator" as I like to call it) and bringing you the best in wastes of your time and mental capacity.
"Before I slide I'm gonna leave you this jewel/even mechanics walk around with they tools/It's The Militia"
-Freddie Foxxx
Seen on the Street of Tucson (click for larger image)
fin.
Who's up for some motherfucking Olympic Games?
U.S.A... U.S.A... U.S.A...
Any takers?
Not me, and I would actually watch downhill skiing voluntarily if it were on the rest of the year. During the Olympics, though, with Bob Costas' reassuring voice punctuating the proceedings with international inanities, I just can't be bothered to slog through the coverage of sports like these:
I don't know if I am just jaded or if I no longer able to muster the proper pavlovian response asked of once every two years. The Olympics are supposed to be accompanied by a cold rush of patriotism and allow one to sweat out one's nationalistic demons by projecting one's hostility towards France upon their third-string skeleton rider (racer?) and wishing for his quick and effortless dispatch at the hands of a crack American squad (minus their best member- steroids). I can't get too worked up this year, though. For reasons ranging from Bode Miller's diplomatic ineptitude and general dickishness to the location (Turin? Whatever happened to the hustle and bustle of, say, Lillehamer? or Salt Lake City?) I just cannot muster the necessary amount of patriotic zeal. With the exception of wanting to see a couple of Minnesota girls hit the slalom course (Kristina Koznick and Lindsey Kildow) and Miller fall, I don't have much riding on this game emotionally. But does anyone? Outside of this little charade once every four years, does anyone, and I mean anyone, go to Skeleton events? Speed Skating? Luge? Where did these sports even come from, and who could possibly support themselves off the ticket sales? Who are these athletes and who taught them how to Luge? I don't remember that unit in gym class. Are there just teams of stern, grandfatherly Eastern Europeans who stake out key sledding hills and, upon seeing a bright young man in a cap and mittens deftly weave his way down the bumpy run and to the bottom, sidles up to him and tells him of his own days sledding, and how sledding led to luge and, if it hadn't been for his knee, but, well, you wouldn't want to hear about that...
As for figure skating, let's face it- it's the only aspect of the Winter Games anyone gives two shits about, and it's not even a sport. This is not to say that it is not an athletic endeavor requiring thousands of hours of diligent, painful study, but it is not a sport in the traditional manner. Sports derive from war games, and thus speed, strength, endurance and an ability to drive past or score on one's opponent are easily-comprehended goals. Whipping about on metal blades for the express purpose of spinning in the air and waving your arms around emotively is a more difficult-to-grasp skill on the bloody fields of Agincourt or Thermopylae. For some reason, it strikes a spider-vein in the female population of America and, despite the fact that your average American woman has never laced up a pair of skates and breathes heavily at the top of the stairs, several days of couch time are dedicated to watching starving children perform circus tricks on skates for the glory of their nation. Does the skater above look like she is capable of dealing a fatal blow? Even the curlers look more dangerous- at least they have sticks and rocks.
The worst part, of course, is the Maurie Povitch sob stories that accompany each athlete. Divorce, poverty, instability, scabies, arterial sclerosis and painful long-term surgical treatments haunt the pasts of these brave young Americans who, being between the ages of sixteen and thirty, have had a lot more time on their hands to grapple with their demons than I feel I might have time for if I were training six hours a day to compete in the zenith of human sport. Last night they appeared, young and vital-looking, and gave no hint of the physical and emotional ravishing they have endured. Somewhere in a US Olympic training facility, thousands of portraits stamped "B.Hallward" sit in protective sleeves. It is not the manipulation aspect that bothers me, particularly- I have grown weary and become acceptant of constant and intrusive media manipulation- it is the banality of the event that must be sensationalized through the hyberbolic tales of woe that gets to me. The endless seven minute sequences of sports you don't care about spliced in with Bob Costas' studio presence and those little athlete vignettes that always start and finish with the athlete, in their gear, looking brave and heroic in the face of such stiff competition and such long odds. Something along these lines:
Some Douchebag With Skis Had Sad Childhood, NBC Reports...
I am invoking my powers as guest editor-at-large of Hongpong.com to change directions on a dime and write music reviews now. Today's review is the Kings of Leon with their album Youth and Young Manhood.
This album was recommended to me by a friend of mine, who shall be known only as Sad Sack. Sad Sack felt that the Kings of Leon would be an intersection between The Strokes and The Libertines, my favorite bands of the last ten years or so (The Strokes second album excepted- shiver) and Creedance Clearwater Revival, a great southern rock band of yore. Sad spoke of a high-energy band with the get-down and southern stank necessary to sate my thirst for Rock with a capital R. He urged me to listen to several songs in particular. I did- and then I listened to the whole album.
M'eh
Listening to the Kings of Leon is definitely more fun than a colonic. Being mangled in a fiery car wreck would definitely suck compared to listening to Kings of Leon. Front-row seats at a live-fire reenactment of the storming of Omaha Beach would be a way less desirable offer than front row seats to the Kings of Leon show. Hell, maybe they kick ass in concert, idunno- I only listened to their studio album.
And it was definitely NOT bad. In fact, some of it is quite good. There is some trilling, growling southern vocals. The band drives their songs with insistent bass lines and guitar riffs, and lays a few face-melters in over the top of the track just to make sure that we know they do not drive Volvos. Unfortunately for them, they had been introduced to me as the equals of a band fronted by Pete Doherty, who is pictured here high as kite with former girlfriend Kate Moss on his arm:
Look at him- the glazed eyes, the jaunty hat, the electrical-taped pants and the shrunken maternity shirt clinging to his bony frame. This man is a complete junky god rock jock with a gloriously-dazed Kate Moss clutching him in order to stay upright. Say what you will about his being a pathetic pile-of-shit scagfreak ne'er-do-well, a flaming re-entry is the price one pays for those kind of heights. Now, I do not want to suggest that rock is about the grinning drugged-jackal walking corpses that it creates, it is merely one of the many ingredients that are required to make Rock God Pie. On top of being a waster of the greatest magnitude, Pete is also an amazing rock songwriter and vocalist, with a fantastic range of imagery and allusion to build his songs from. Or he was, until he started in a death spiral- that's neither here nor there. The operative point is that he is, undeniably, rock-and-roll. Now, the lead singer of the Kings of Leon looks like this:
See a supermodel hanging on his arm?
Yes, he is not Pete Doherty. Nor are the Kings of Leon The Libertines. What they are, though, is a band of brothers and a cousin, in a southern band that, though it takes too many queues from the rock of New York and Los Angeles, is still unmistakably a good-ol-boy southern rock band, and conveniently free of the latent racism that keep hits from groups like Lynnard Skynnard off the set list at NAACP mixers. On a couple of songs, like "Joe's Head" and "Trani", insistent guitars, cigarette-scarred vocals and honky-tonk pianos conspire to deliver the goods- a younger, rawer, more diversely-influenced sound in the spirit of C.C.R. Developing such a style is an admirable goal, and the best of this CD shows it to be an attainable one, as well. However, this album falls under a proto-genre of the more expansive 'American Rock' category- the Play Our Singles Please Album, or POSPA. You see, when a southern honky-tonk rock band puts out a song like "California Waiting", with only the lead singers rabies-infected yaps to keep one from concluding that some shithead teenaged pseudo-rocker dating some shithead teenaged actress/singer whose career developed rapidly from child star to stumbling nincompoop recorded the song. In fact, the heavy hand of the hitmaker LA producer can be help on the entire second half of the disc, with the moment of peak crappiness being their widely-played single "Molly's Chambers". The crappiness of this song is probably well-documented, but I must add that the song is flat and lifeless enough to dissuade me from trying to determine just what, in fact, Mr. Caleb Followill (that's this duder's name) wants to do to Molly and her Chambers- it is the plural, chambers, after all...
A second listening helps this disc out a lot, as the points of continuity become more evident. I guess I am just not convinced that this is the album they would make without the input of whatever LA pop culture consultant was flown in for the task. The wussification of rock has become the overwhelming trend not seven years into its revitalization, and I am afraid we must resign ourselves to this fact. However, the Kings of Leon would seem poised to use their newfound popularity to do what they want- let's hope they do.
BTW- Is the guy behind Mr. Followill (pretty good rock name) wearing a plus-size model's blouse?
Cheney 'Authorized' Libby to Leak Classified Information
By Murray Waas, National Journal
Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, testified to a federal grand jury that he had been "authorized" by Cheney and other White House "superiors" in the summer of 2003 to disclose classified information to journalists to defend the Bush administration's use of prewar intelligence in making the case to go to war with Iraq, according to attorneys familiar with the matter, and to court records.
Libby specifically claimed that in one instance he had been authorized to divulge portions of a then-still highly classified National Intelligence Estimate regarding Saddam Hussein's purported efforts to develop nuclear weapons, according to correspondence recently filed in federal court by special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald.
As we say on the Internet, LOL. Atrios notes it's slightly hypocritical. Another CIA official has come out of the woodwork to accuse the Bush Administration of cherrypicking Iraq intelligence – and guess what, Robert Novak hated him too! Paul R. Pillar, thanks for being a patriot. We need guys like you. WaPo: "Ex-CIA Official Faults Use of Data on Iraq":
The former CIA official who coordinated U.S. intelligence on the Middle East until last year has accused the Bush administration of "cherry-picking" intelligence on Iraq to justify a decision it had already reached to go to war, and of ignoring warnings that the country could easily fall into violence and chaos after an invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
"It has become clear that official intelligence was not relied on in making even the most significant national security decisions, that intelligence was misused publicly to justify decisions already made, that damaging ill will developed between [Bush] policymakers and intelligence officers, and that the intelligence community's own work was politicized," Pillar wrote.
......Pillar was identified in a column by Robert D. Novak as having prepared the assessment and having given a speech critical of Bush's Iraq policy at a private dinner in California. The column fed the White House's view that the CIA was in effect working against the Bush administration, and that Pillar was part of that. A columnist in the Washington Times in October 2004 called him "a longstanding intellectual opponent of the policy options chosen by President Bush to fight terrorism."
Add these two bits together, and boom, there you go, they smoked Valerie Plame in an attempt to protect all their fake intelligence and swat at the CIA. But why the hell do I bother repeating myself for the 124,639th time?
Fair and Balanced Editing of Applause: Fox "Memory Hole" News edited out anti-Bush applause at the Coretta Scott King funeral, then Morty Kondracke said that the audience obviously didn't like the partisanship. Now that's a reality distortion field. MSNBC was caught in a Harry Reid-Abramoff headline changing dodge. More on yesterday's Reid smear below.
<woozy> What's going on everyone? After my wisdom teeth were yanked, I have been popping Vicodin like candy for the last couple days, but everything seems to be going pretty well so far. No dry sockets yet. I had never been under general anesthesia before, so I was a little nervous because it can supposedly kill you. But it was plainly awesome to wake up with all my wisdom teeth yanked, loaded up with drogas.
Hilarious stuff from Mordred. Well done. </woozy>
ADVISE is the New Total Information Awareness: Yes, this "Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight, and Semantic Enhancement" program will know your favorite soda and pornography. Of course they will be totally responsible when drunk on Ultimate Power. CSM: "US plans massive data sweep: Little-known data-collection system could troll news, blogs, even e-mails. Will it go too far?" More here.
The CounterTerrorism Blog looks good. They are skeptical of Bush's latest West Coast marquee terrorist conspiracy. So a good place to start.
Israeli Shin Bet director says Israel 'may rue Saddam overthrow' to young Israeli settlers: You can't make this shit up:
The head of Israel's domestic security agency, Shin Bet, has said his country may come to regret the overthrow of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Yuval Diskin said a strong dictatorship would be preferable to the present "chaos" in Iraq, in a speech to teenage Jewish settlers in the West Bank.
He also said the Israeli security services and judiciary treated Arabs and Jewish suspects differently.
.....His speech to the students at the Eli settlement as they prepared for military service was secretly recorded and broadcast on Israeli TV.
When asked about the growing destabilisation of Iraq, Mr Diskin said Israel might come to rue its decision to support the US-led invasion in 2003. "When you dismantle a system in which there is a despot who controls his people by force, you have chaos," he said. "I'm not sure we won't miss Saddam."
This goes into my theory that Shin Bet directors are actually quite sane, and are in fact opposed to neo-con bullshit because they can understand that widespread chaos is not really in Israel's interests at all. 1995-2000 Shin Bet director Ami Ayalon was not the only one to speak against this garbage. Also, from the New Yorker, a cynical old Israeli intelligence operator who wasn't surprised that about HAMAS' victory and rising fundamentalism all over the place. Just wait until this gets to Syria and Jordan.
Cryptome.org spills secrets: Cryptome is a totally sweet site and I'd like to throw out a few goodies. One: the somewhat suppressed Official CIA History of the Bay of Pigs Operation. Plausible Deniability. The introduction on Cryptome's front page, and the official history is here. Two: all kinds of weird stuff like this list of MI6 officers that has attracted the attention of FBI Counterintelligence.
Three: famed national security writer James Bamford writes about his involvement with the NSA lawsuit. Talks about Nixon's illegal Operation Minaret, which sounds pretty similar to things these days. Four: Also consider the Pentagon's declassified "Information Operations Roadmap" they published:
We Must Fight the Net. DoD is building an information-centric force. Networks are increasingly the operational center of gravity, and the Department must be prepared to "fight the net." [1 line redacted.] but be fully prepare to ensure critical warfighting network functionality and to [1 line redacted].
.....In particular, PSYOP must be refocused on adversary decision-making, planning well in advance for aggressive behavior modification during times of conflict. PSYOP products must be based on in-depth knowledge of the audience's decision~making processes and the factors influencing his decisions, produced rapidly at the highest quality standards, and powerfully disseminated directly to targeted audiences throughout the area of operations.
....We Must Improve Network and Electro-Magnetic Attack Capability. To prevail in an information-centric fight, it is increasingly important that our forces dominate the electromagnetic spectrum with attack capabilities.
I'll drink to that. Actually, I think I'll drink a lot to that. Five: Cryptome.cn publishes information censored by the Chinese government, as well. This is really what the Internet is all about.
OSS.Net: Way too cryptic: "Commercial Open Source Intelligence, Risk Mitigation, and Security for the Seven Tribes. Global, New Craft, Tribal & Sub-State, in 29 Languages with Integrated IT and Underlying Geospatial." Whatever that means, I want to get a job there.
Tabs on John Bolton: Check BoltonWatch at the TPMCafe. All right. Clemons is on point here too.
The latest smear on Harry Reid doesn't really have anything behind it: Trying to tie him to the Abramoff mess, but there's no there there.
Another reason to slash PBS funding: Evidence of a "hoax" & "cabal": on NOW with David Brancaccio, they did an excellent job explaining the shady mysteries of Iraq pre-war intelligence and interviewing Lawrence Wilkerson. Brancaccio was gutsy and far more accurate than any cable news garbage. It was a great primer to Intel-gate for the un-initiated. It must make Bush's skin crawl to realize that government cash is being used to shatter their grand tale:
DAVID BRANCACCIO: We've been talking grand policy. The then director of the CIA, George Tenet, Vice President Cheney's deputy Libby, told you that the intelligence that was the basis of going to war was rock solid. Given what you now know, how does that make you feel?
LAWRENCE WILKERSON: It makes me feel terrible. I've said in other places that it was-- constitutes the lowest point in my professional life. My participation in that presentation at the UN constitutes the lowest point in my professional life.
I participated in a hoax on the American people, the international community and the United Nations Security Council. How do you think that makes me feel? Thirty-one years in the United States Army and I more or less end my career with that kind of a blot on my record? That's not a very comforting thing.
DAVID BRANCACCIO: A hoax? That's quite a word.
LAWRENCE WILKERSON: Well, let's face it, it was. It was not a hoax that the Secretary [Powell] in any way was complicit in. In fact he did his best-- I watched him work. Two AM in the morning on the DCI and the Deputy DCI, John McLaughlin.
And to try and hone the presentation down to what was, in the DCI's own words, a slam dunk. Firm. Iron clad. We threw many things out. We threw the script that Scooter Libby had given the-- Secretary of State. Forty-eight page script on WMD. We threw that out the first day.
And we turned to the National Intelligence estimate as part of the recommendation of George Tenent and my agreement with. But even that turned out to be, in its substantive parts-- that is stockpiles of chemicals, biologicals and production capability that was hot and so forth, and an active nuclear program. The three most essential parts of that presentation turned out to be absolutely false.......
DAVID BRANCACCIO: ....You've said that Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld somehow managed to hijack the intelligence decision making process. You called it a cabal. And said that it was done in a way that makes you think it was more akin to something you'd see in a dictatorship rather than a democracy. Now those are strong words. Why a cabal?
LAWRENCE WILKERSON: Well, the two decisions that I had the most profound insights into and which I have spoken to are the decision to depart from the Geneva Conventions and to depart from international law with regard to treatment of detainees by the Armed Forces in particular. But by the entire US establishment, now including the CIA and contractors in general.
And the post-invasion Iraq-- planning, which was as inept and incompetent as any planning I've witnessed in some 30-plus years in public service. Those two decisions were clearly-- made in the statutory process, the legal process, in one way and made underneath that process in another way. And that's what I've labeled secret and cabal-like.
Nice.
War is a Racket: I found Major General Smedley Butler's classic Anti-war, anti-imperialist screed, War is a Racket, on the Veterans for Peace website. (interestingly, Butler also testified about a secret fascist conspiracy to overthrow FDR). This was his classic statement, which was not part of War is a Racket:
I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902–1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested.
Nothing Works: It is really funny that the White House set up this grand website, expectmore.gov, to provide an evaluation of all the federal government's programs. Among the list of programs that are apparently busted (via first-draft.com):
Dept of Defense-- Military Defense Communications Infrastructure
Dept of Homeland Security Border Patrol
Dept of Homeland Security Coast Guard: Aids to Navigation
Dept of Homeland Security Coast Guard: Drug Interdiction
Dept of Homeland Security Coast Guard: Search and Rescue
Dept of Homeland Security Transportation Security Administration: Air Cargo Security Programs
Dept of Homeland Security Transportation Security Administration: Aviation Regulation and Enforcement
Dept of Homeland Security Transportation Security Administration: Baggage Screening Technology
Dept of Homeland Security Transportation Security Administration: Federal Air Marshal Service
Dept of Homeland Security Transportation Security Administration: Flight Crew Training
Dept of Homeland Security Transportation Security Administration: Passenger Screening Technology
Dept of Homeland Security Transportation Security Administration: Screener Workforce
Federal Election Commission Federal Election Laws - Compliance and Enforcement
Office of Natl Drug Control Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign
Department of Energy National Nuclear Infrastructure
To make a long story short via AmericaBlog: Wash Times: 1) Bush is spying on American-American phone calls IN THE US; 2) Known Al Qaeda agents are running free inside US; 3) Spy program useless. Der WaPo says:
"Intelligence officers who eavesdropped on thousands of Americans in overseas calls under authority from President Bush have dismissed nearly all of them as potential suspects after hearing nothing pertinent to a terrorist threat, according to accounts from current and former government officials and private-sector sources with knowledge of the technologies in use ... Fewer than 10 U.S. citizens or residents a year, according to an authoritative account, have aroused enough suspicion during warrantless eavesdropping to justify interception of their domestic calls, as well. That step still requires a warrant from a federal judge, for which the government must supply evidence of probable cause."
And by the way, FISA Court really streamlined after 9/11 so why no warrants? Gonzales: NSA may tap 'ordinary' Americans' e-mail.
BitTorrent evolves to avoid packet shaping: Internet service providers are apparently starting to try to filter down BitTorrent. So the BT developers are implementing encryption so they can't see Torrent traffic. leet.
Nazi mysteries: Some of the weird esoteric stuff within Nazism. Includes really disturbing stuff about Nazi research scientists and their "Holy Grail" style hunts for items of folklore and mystic significance... Somehow our cartoonish enemies these days just can't quite measure up to the Teutonic standard.
Funny t-shirts. Will they never end?
Hello, readers.
I am here to make a terrible confession. I have to admit to something, before shame eats away at me like salt-laced plow-snow on the rocker panels of a '74 Dart. I am totally, ridiculously, blindingly head-over-hells in lurve with NBC's The Biggest Loser.
For those of you unfamiliar with the program, NBC finds dangerously obese Americans who share a desire to lose weight. Competing either individually or in (generally) couples or family teams, these contestants are physically-trained within an inch of their lives for ten days, whilst learning about healthy eating and whatnot. After the ten days, they are weighed, and a preliminary prize (tonight, in a 'dream wedding' themed episode, a lavish honeymoon) is given. After that, they are turned loose and return to their hometowns to do all the work themselves without trainer supervision for something like six months. Aided by numerous sepia sequences bip-bopping gooey melodies in the background, we the viewers get to see the remarkable transformation in the lives of these people as they transition from prize hog to deflated balloon. Sometimes the fat dissolves to reveal beautiful, picturesque individuals and sometimes they look like trolls in wet gunney sacks, but their delight is always evident- the patina of exploitation just cannot dull the shine these people accrue through months of grueling physical labor.
And what labor it is- a good quarter of the show is the workout sessions of these individuals, pockmarked nodes of fat wriggling about under the voluminous skin of the heifer-human hybrid huffing it through another hill climb. Now is the time to feel smug, before the hard work and restraint force you to reconsider your wicked ways and sympathize- nay, connect, with the rapidly-dimishing men and women on the picture box. Muscles and smiles and puppies and special "surprise" visits from the telegenic and intellectually unintimidating personal trainers are harnessed together for a kind of tearjerker deathray, a combination of so many instinctual cultural cues that all Americans are rendered powerless to resist. In the face of such an authentic forgery of actual human emotions, one's eyes well up as quickly as if one had been pepper sprayed. With the twin voyeuristic urges of pleasure and pain sated, the show maintains your interest with the siren song of an eventual, winner-takes-$50,000 weigh-in.
I needn't tell you that I am practically salivating by the time the two tubby teams tilt the scales at the final weigh-in, aprons of lard disappeared from their body and tingling with anticipation. Sometimes the contestants are hardly recognizable by the end, having lost as much as 94 pounds and 30+% of their body mass. The rising strings, the transformation tale of grit and determination and a high tolerance for public humiliation, all in the name of fifty thousand bucks and half column in next week's People- Fat Ass Not So Fat, Anymore- Thinks America Cares About Her Life. The story is pure Horatio Algier, the kind of inspirational influence that has driven American efforts to expand our minds and extend our abilities to their furthest- so long as there's cash in it. When I see those whittled figures take to the stage and weigh in like steer at the 4-H show, I too dream of one day being obese enough to qualify as a contestant on a fat farm TV show. It is a dream I think we all can share, having a major network pay for us to undo thirty years of neglecting our bodies and stuffing our faces, possibly even rewarding us with large cash prizes at the end. In exchange for my dignity, I would snigger at the sucker's deal I was giving them in exchange for my fifteen minutes, a home gym, and thousands in specialists' bills.
God Bless America for having an endless supply of the morbidly obese. Without the Calorie-Industrial Complex, none of this would possible. Fifty years of research have gone into creating the starchy, fatty, greasy cuisine that is the real star in this drama. When one thinks of all the poor, urban populations that this food was tested on before it was deemed worthy of more widespread distribution, the dedication of company's like RJR Nabisco is all too evident. Outside of the watchful eyes of horizontally-organized global conglomerates, a show like The Biggest Loser mightn't even be possible.
"You have won the battle of the bulge, and that makes you the biggest loser."
Oh, and the host who says that is a little porky herself- I'm just saying, special "biggest host" episode?
I have to get my wisdom teeth pulled at 11 AM. Jane Cat has a damaged right ear. Apparently poor thing got a hematoma, or a separation of skin & cartilage, as a consequence of an infection. Makes the ear go off to an angle.
So there will be no updates from me for a day or two. Perhaps one of our recent contributors might. Perhaps not. That is the nice thing about the internet, you don't really have to give a shit if you don't want to.
One of the nice things about tooth surgery is the Vicodin. Ironically, one of the nice things about the War on Terror is how it defeated the War on Drugs by making regional post-mujahideen warlords our key allies. And their primary industry is controlling and exporting the same varieties of opiates that I'm about to be awarded for my tooth surgery.
So I am putting up this totally sweet map of opium poppy cultivation, two years into the War on Terror. Note that the dark red sections are more than 50% opium cultivation. This is Freedom, everyone.
One of my favorite maps of all time:
More Afghanistan industry heroin tracking from the UNODC here. Big pimpin, spinnin cheese.
Well it's another week and a lot of things should happen. As for me, I am tangled up in some of the shadiest business around, and I don't know where things are going. What I am talking about? I'll explain shortly I promise.
There are some new versions of stuff you should check out. An alternative Mac OS X web browser called Camino finally released v. 1.0 rc1 (for those of you non-geeks, RC means 'release candidate'. Software development goes from Alpha to Beta versions, then to Release Candidate versions, and then final versions or Gold Masters. So RC1 means it's pretty polished). My old acquaintance Josh Aas from Macalester did some development for Camino, so I respect it all the more.
Camino is a side project of Mozilla, so it shares some code with Firefox. It is, however, specifically optimized for the Mac (and now Intel Macs) so it very good, and worth trying out.
There is always a tricky problem of playing Windows Media files on a Mac, and because of Microsoft's petulant bitchiness about how Apple is about to crush them, they quit making WMV plugins for Mac internet surfing. Fortunately a company called Flip4Mac has a free WMV player plugin that works fine.
MacUpdate.com is a good site, and they have a list of nifty new Dashboard widgets, including AirTrafficControl, a sweet Airport optimizing/snooping thing, a digital whiteboard called NoodleBoard, an SMS cellphone text messaging transmitter, Dashlicious to interact with the amazing del.icio.us social bookmark/tagging system, and why not, a molecular protein viewer called ProteinGlimpse (pictured) Keep an eye on your RNA and so forth. There's a lot more dashboard widgets to mess around with too.
At this time I must make sad mention of how dschned's excellent Apple G4 laptop was jacked when he left it behind while coaxing his dog Sam into the car. How tragic. Fortunately he had just made backups of all his old school files, photos and recent work projects the week before, so the only thing truly lost (besides the hardware) was some emails.
Over at Politics In Minnesota we have been having trouble with our email archives as well. BACK UP.
"Keep your eyes clear, and your head clean!"
Today began around 11 o'clock this morning. Mildly pleasant, and I felt fairly relaxed from my sleep. Bummed around the house a little bit, walked the dog.
For the past four hours I've been outside in the 15 degree night, designing paintings. Finally the paint fumes and frostbitten toes got to me. Now I am brain dead.
Today's News of the Weird by Chuck Shepherd:
Recently opened archives in Moscow show that in the 1920s, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin ordered his top animal breeding scientist to create interspecies "super warriors." Stalin's half-men, half-apes would be "invincible," "insensitive to pain" and "indifferent about the quality of food they eat."
Moscow archives show that in the mid-1920s Russia's top animal breeding scientist, Ilya Ivanov, was ordered to turn his skills from horse and animal work to the quest for a super-warrior.
According to Moscow newspapers, Stalin told the scientist: "I want a new invincible human being, insensitive to pain, resistant and indifferent about the quality of food they eat."
In 1926 the Politburo in Moscow passed the request to the Academy of Science with the order to build a "living war machine". The order came at a time when the Soviet Union was embarked on a crusade to turn the world upside down, with social engineering seen as a partner to industrialisation: new cities, architecture, and a new egalitarian society were being created.
Well this spurred me down the strange path of gibberish and esoterica on the Internet about the mysterious projects of the Soviet Union. One elaborate story about Soviet electromagnetic research leading to scalar EM weapons was quite an exotic tale. Soviet weather control, applied Tesla Death Ray stuff. It's kind of like Pop Sci Fi from the Cold War, Red Dawn meets electrical engineering. For example, take "Historical Background of Scalar EM Weapons" by Lt. Col. T.E. Bearden (retd.), 1990, which relates
The peculiar "nuclear flashes" seen by the Vela satellites in September 1979 and December 1980 could have been due to a testing of a scalar EM howitzer in the pulsed exothermic mode. In the mode, scalar EM pulses meet at a distance, where their interference produces a sharp electromagnetic explosion (hence the "flash", very similar to the initial EMP flash of a nuclear explosion. Even in the vacuum of space, such an explosive eruption of energy from within the local spacetime vacuum itself may be expected to lift matter from the Dirac sea, producing a plasma. Prompt absorption and re-radiation of energy from this sudden plasma may be expected to present nearly the same "double peak" profile as does a nuclear explosion. This was the profile presented by the flashes. Note that the second flash detected was apparently of an "explosion" primarily in the infrared, almost certainly ruling out a conventional nuclear event. It does not rule out, however, pulsed distant holography using pumped EM giant time-reversed wave transmitters.
He also says that the Challenger explosion was caused by Soviet energy weapons. It is really a compelling kind of story, but of course I'll trust it as far as I can throw it. Also offers this:
In the late 1960's, Lisitsyn reported that the Soviets had broken the "genetic code" of the human brain. He stated the code had 44 digits or less, and the brain employed 22 frequency bands across nearly the whole EM spectrum. However, only 11 of the frequency bands were independent. This work implies that, if 11 or more correct frequency channels* can be "phase-locked" into the human brain, then it should be possible to drastically influence the thoughts, vision, physical functioning, emotions, and conscious state of the individual, even from a great distance.
It may be highly significant that
(1) up to 16 of the giant Soviet woodpecker carriers have been observed by Beck and others to carry a common, phase-locked 10-Hz modulation, and
(2) such a 10-Hz signal has been demonstrated by Beck, Rauscher, Bise, and others to be able to physically entrain or "phase-lock" the human brain, if stronger than the Schumann resonance of the Earth's magnetic field.
This, in turn, leads to Total Conspiracy on the old tinfoil hat - schizophrenic model. But who can deny the mystique of Soviet energy weapons scientists in some secret military city, hunched over their experiments, trying to extract energy from the ether, playing chess and swilling vodka on break? Why not? And what about how the Soviets cooked the U.S. Embassy in Moscow with lots of microwave radiation, the twisted bastards? (this is pretty weird, medical studies of State Dept. staff and Moscow radiation)
And the terrible stories about radioactive contamination around the USSR are also part of this weird backstory to the nuclear apocalypse of the cold war.
Presenting: Stalin's Plan: Neo-monkey-humanoids and Tesla Weapons:
Ok I feel silly right now. But just think: what if the Russians are applying their considerable SAM and directed energy expertise towards Iran? Surely, if Iran would pay, Russia would be down with it.
This guy says that the US military is experimenting with energy weapons that manipulate Iraqis in Iraq. Sounds fanciful, but hey, when in Babylon, do crazy shit like Nebuchadnezzar, right?
And don't forget the classic story of Tesla and the Tunguska Explosion.
One final tidbit: check out the mysterious HAARP, some kind of Alaskan energy device that the U.S. military has set up to muck around with the ionosphere or something. And, um, someone blamed Hurricane Katrina on it. Which goes to show that all this shit about electromagnetic technology is a really great wildcard for any given conspiracy theory. CONTRAILS ARE REAL!!!
A quick tour of goodies mostly from DailyKos. Via here and here, we discover that Joe Lieberman was the first person in the whole damn building to jump to his feet and applaud Bush's comments on Iraq. What the fuck? (the comic is mine - I need to offer something to match Jon tonight)
Stick up for photography in public places, it's your right: Australian snappers to defy police ban - NEWS.com.au. Via Slashdot.
Why we spend $400,000,000,000 EVERY YEAR: Raimondo checks out 'Why We Fight', a really sweet sounding documentary about the Military Industrial Complex, starring Richard Perle and Billy Kristol, Karen "Hey I saw the Office of Special Plans" Kwiatkowski, good ol' Chalmers Johnson, McCain, and other stars of the heady days of 2003-2004 spoofed intelligence wars. Also talks about the pro-war thinktank matrix and how the military industrial complex spreads cash around many congressional districts, to keep on Going and Going. Good old Eisenhower:
"This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
Because pressing 'Delete' is not really the best way to exonerate your SMTP-based crimes against America: Fitzgerald thinks someone is tampering with the White House email logs pertaining to the Valerie Plame scandal. Well done guys.
CNN Money: Visions of Future Google. Bankrupt, or the entire media, or else God & consciousness in your DNA. Why not?
Easy Cowboy:
Administration backs off Bush's vow to reduce Mideast oil imports
By Kevin G. Hall
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America's dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn't mean it literally.
(Via DailyKos) Also from the Kos, in TX-22, Tom DeLay just can't pull cash like he used to:
Rep. Tom DeLay has just $150,000 more in the bank than challenger Democrat Nick Lampson, the most recent election filings show.
DeLay's campaign committee reported having $1.44 million on hand and Lampson's campaign $1.29 million, according to year-end reports that were filed late Tuesday with the Federal Election Commission. The reports include all funds received up to Dec. 30, 2005, and also include a swing-for-the-fences fundraising dinner in Houston for DeLay with Vice President Dick Cheney on Dec. 5. DeLay's office called the fundraiser "the most successful of the congressman's career."
"In one night alone, the congressman took in more than $500,000," said campaign spokeswoman Shannon Flaherty. "It was a very strong fourth quarter."
Keith Olbermann rips apart Bill O'Reilly. And Chris Matthews is still telling absolute horseshit about Domestic Spying.
Augh I am bored of this hack shit but maybe someone cares. Thank you DailyKos.
Well, Madison is still fertile ground. Jon is wrapping up his college days right now, and he's found a spot to draw a regular comic strip and the odd story illustration lately. Nicely done. This is a way cool Alito drawing (from this opinion bit). Madison's The Daily Cardinal is the venue of choice.
Jon has also been sketching a comic called Two Word Title. Here is the Jon Lyons media index. Looks Pimp to me!! Just wait until the first Jon Lyons New Yorker cover. You heard it here first folks.
With a little luck we will get some more goodies from the Lyons Residence up here soon. I am hoping to get contributions (anonymous or otherwise) because it is more interesting to hear from friends than my usual ramblings.
