Do you see the light?

The Joy of Tech comic... laughter is the best tech support.

Just another form of slavery in Kingston Town

For anyone who wonders "why they hate us," watch this documentary and the mystery will be solved. It thoroughly documents how the US, the WTO, and the IMF have systematically destroyed every aspect of Jamaican economic opportunity and culture.

The US didn't abolish slavery in the 19th century; they simply outsourced it. Take a look inside the Kingston Free Zone and you'll see the slaves still at work. Visit a Jamaican banana plantation and learn about how the economy of a sovereign nation was subjugated in the name of "free trade."

In short, fellow fat Americans, pull your heads out of your globalizing butts and watch this film, and then try -- for just a moment, at least -- to put yourself on the other side of the coin. Imagine how you would feel about a foreign agency that took away your livelihood, that treated you like chattel, that demanded you stop making a living so that a transnational corporation could capture the last 5% of a market share.

Wouldn't you hate them, too?

Life and Debt (2001)
(via fefe)

Teaching a old Windows old tricks

The trick is that Internet Explorer 6 and 7 beta can be fooled into running Windows desktop shortcuts instead of going to the Internet. For example, right-click your desktop and choose Create a Shortcut. Tell the shortcut to run Notepad.exe, but name the shortcut "www.aol.com." Now type www.aol.com into IE (Internet Explorer) and see what happens. Instead of going to www.aol.com, IE starts Windows notepad.

Huh?

Wrestling with Windows' hidden "features" | InfoWorld | Column | 2006-05-19 | By Roger A. Grimes
(via schneier)

Do you want to upgrade?

My last DVD drive is dead. Kind of. It works. It doesn't work. It reads a data DVD, but not an audio CD. It refuses to burn CDs or DVDs. Sigh.

Fine, I buy a new DVD drive. This time a "retail", not a bulk version (and a different vendor). One with lightscribe and OEM software. Nero OEM. How very nice of Samsung to include that in the box (and not so nice to include a "normal" IDE cable instead of a UDMA133 cable).

So what does this new Samsung drive do in my computer:
1. I still can't grab sudio CDs, neither in iTunes or in any other application.
2. I still can't burn DVDs from the Explorer.
3. While I can burn CDs from Explorer and NERO, I can't burn them critters from iTunes.

But I digress, I was talking about NERO.

So I have a nice and free OEM version of NERO. Let's summarize:
1. I can't write LightScribe. The old version of the NERO software used to crash my computer. No bluescreen, no message in the eventlog. Just a restart. Fuck. I upgraded to a newer version and the new version just fails with a vanilla error message.
2. I can't burn DVDs in NERO. I can start it, but it fails after some time.
3. I installed NERO and the Samsung drive on a different computer, alas, only to get different error messages. (Well I managed to burn my first LightScribe on that different computer)
4. Whenever burning something in NERO fails (and it may fail because NERO *thinks* there is something on a RW disc and is unable to delete it), I HAVE TO CLICK 5 TIMES, SAVE THE PROJECT, CLOSE THE PROGRAM AND OPEN THE PROJECT AGAIN. WTF?


So if the NERO website asks me if I want to upgrade my OEM version and get something decent, I can say: YES!

I HATE CD BURNING UNDER WINDOWS

FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!

WHY IS IT THAT THERE HAS TO GO SOMETHING WRONG EVERY TIME I TRY TO BURN SOMETHING ON A CD OR DVD?!?!?!?!?

AND WHY THE FUCK DOES NERO INSTALL A YAHOO TOOLBAR IN MY INTERNET EXPLORER?

FUCKING C*NTS.

We resume our normal program after this short message.

Everybody is building car bombs, why shouldn't I?

This is a interesting story: How car bombs were invented and how they evolved. With notable appearances of the Anarchists, the Zionists, British Deserters, the Palestines, Alfa Romeo, the IRA, the Israelis and the international car bomb melting pot of Beirut.

With so many people trying to kill each other for so many different reasons, Beirut became to the technology of urban violence what a tropical rainforest is to the evolution of plants.

TomDispatch - Tomgram: Mike Davis on the History of the Car Bomb

And don't forget to read part 2. Here we learn how the US taught al-Qaeda how to build car bombs.

It was [CIA Director] Casey on his own, saying, ‘I‘m going to solve the big problem by essentially getting tougher or as tough as the terrorists in using their weapon -- the car bomb.'"

The CIA's own operatives, however, proved incapable of carrying out the bombing, so Casey subcontracted the operation to Lebanese agents led by a former British SAS officer and financed by Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar. In March 1984, a large car bomb was detonated about 50 yards from Sheikh Fadlallah's house in Bir El-Abed, a crowded Shiite neighborhood in southern Beirut. The sheikh wasn't harmed, but 80 innocent neighbors and passersby were killed and 200 wounded. Fadlallah immediately had a huge "MADE IN USA" banner hung across the shattered street, while Hezbollah returned tit for tat in September when a suicide truck driver managed to break through the supposedly impregnable perimeter defenses of the new U.S. embassy in eastern (Christian) Beirut, killing 23 employees and visitors.

Despite the Fadlallah fiasco, Casey remained an enthusiast for using urban terrorism to advance American goals, especially against the Soviets and their allies in Afghanistan. A year after the Bir El-Abed massacre, Casey won President Reagan's approval for NSDD-166, a secret directive that, according to Steve Coll in Ghost Wars, inaugurated a "new era of direct infusions of advanced U.S. military technology into Afghanistan, intensified training of Islamist guerrillas in explosives and sabotage techniques, and targeted attacks on Soviet military officers."

U.S. Special Forces experts would now provide high-tech explosives and teach state-of-the-art sabotage techniques, including the fabrication of ANFO (ammonium nitrate-fuel oil) car bombs, to Pakistani intelligence service (or ISI) officers under the command of Brigadier Mohammed Yousaf. These officers, in turn, would tutor thousands of Afghan and foreign mujahedin, including the future cadre of al-Qaeda, in scores of training camps financed by the Saudis. "Under ISI direction," Coll writes, "the mujahedin received training and malleable explosives to mount car-bomb and even camel-bomb attacks in Soviet-occupied cities, usually designed to kill Soviet soldiers and commanders. Casey endorsed these despite the qualms of some CIA career officers."

...
It was the greatest technology transfer of terrorist technique in history. There was no need for angry Islamists to take car-bomb extension courses from Hezbollah when they could matriculate in a CIA-supported urban-sabotage graduate program in Pakistan's frontier provinces.

(via)

The U.S. military is conducting a propaganda campaign to magnify the role of the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq

Washington Post - Military Plays Up Role of Zarqawi
(via Matthias Bröcker)

A Clockwork Red White Blue - Original Screenplay by Herman Göring

Göring: "Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."

Gilbert: "There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."

Göring: "Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

Herman Göring, Nuremberg Trials, 18th April 1946

Hermann Göring - Wikiquote
(via Matthias Bröcker)

A Clockwork Red White Blue - A Blueprint

What is the Clockwork Red White Blue?

I doubt that the events on September the Eleventh were the result of a deliberate plan by the US government to commit a terrorist act on US soil. It is my opinion that it were many different people on different levels with different agendas who enabled and maybe aided the acts on 9/11.
For those in top positions, an act of terrorism in the United States was a welcome opportunity to introduce the Patriot Act (1200 pages one month after 9/11? They had it ready, just waiting) and invade Afghanistan and Iraq (I'm afraid the US has plans read for every country in the world, so this not a surprise. They just have to pick one...). The US government knew of an imminent terrorist attack, but instead of trying to stop the attack by directing the differenty agencies that could have prevented it, they choose to let the attacks happen. The terrorist attacks gave them the needed momentum to achieve their policy. (So it is no surprise that the US government, having achieved what they wanted, lacks the interest to clear up the events that lead to 9/11. Not only that, they have no interest to stop these conspiracy theorists, because nothing is better than to cover the truth under a mountain of lies.)

People lower in the food chain didn't knew and didn't care about any plans by their government. They have agendas of their own. Some simply wanted more funds and more influence, which they hoped they could achieve by "[letting] the documents pile up so [they] can show it and say that [they] need more translators and expand the department".

Some agencies have agendas that are not clear while others agencies simply don't won't to play together out of a tradition of secrecy.

I don't know if the 9/11 terrorist, when choosing Huffman Aviation were aided or just lucky (or if Huffman had a reputation of being the right choice if one didn't want to attract much attention), but it seems that the authorities have been looking the other way with regards of Rudi Dekkers, Wally Hilliard and Huffman Aviation.

So I don't think that this Clockwork Red White Blue is a machine with a few Illuminati at the control wheels driving it into the direction that they want. It is rather a cart with a large bunch of people pulling in all kinds of directions. And some people are more skilled in getting the cart to move in their favour. Unfortunately the cart is moving in a direction it should not move.

And this just a partial view of this system. The military has been woven in so tightly into the US economy and into US politics. A new weapon system has parts build in every US state to put pressure (jobs equal votes) on the representives. This makes the US military an elephant pulling the cart in its direction, slowly, but relentlessly, not caring about anybody else. This is the Military-Industrial Complex of which Eisenhower warned to no avail. And I really don't know if the US invades other countries because the government wants to or because simply they can.

What will stop this? I'm afraid that this system will bring itself down. First of all, nobody else can. The US are in a position were nobody else can attack them (and ignore terrorist attacks; terrorist attacks are pinpricks. Look at Israel, it is still here). Not that it would make much sense to attack the US, because out of 100 invasions in the last fifty years, about 10 suceeded (The US should know that out of own experience, but they keep invading countries...). The only ones that can stop it are the US citizens, but until they have a severe interest to stop this, they simply won't care enough. I wouldn't be surprised if things get a lot worse before they get better. All empires have crumbled and if some in the US think they need to act like one, one day they might find that they will end like one...

(Some links are from here)

Suicide

su·i·cide (s-sd)
noun
The act or an instance of intentionally killing oneself: "Gary Webb commited suicide by shooting himself twice in the head"

(via Journalismus)

Disturbing

dis·turb·ing (d-stûrb-ing)

To trouble emotionally or mentally; upset: "It is disturbing that the house of congressman William J Jefferson has been raided by the FBI"

see: involved

A Clockwork Red White Blue - Make every cocaine drop count

This is unbelievable. I'm not making this up (as fefe would say). Go check the sources.

A DC-9 aircraft, painted with a interesting seal owned by Sky Way, a bankrupt sub-penny stocks scam company pretending to be from the "ominous" Military-Industrial Complex, the aircraft being registered as N900SA to Royal Sons Inc. (having an unknown cooperation with Sky Ways), was seized by Mexico smuggling 5.5 tons of cocaine.

Annoying side note: See the lack of reports by the MSM versus the posts on the internet. Where is the so called free media?

Interesting side note: Sky Way has bought (aircontrol) ground stations locations and technical documentation associated with over 100 U.S. (aircontrol) tower locations and wants to sell a "airborne security system [that] uses passenger monitoring tools such as security cameras and facial recognition software to attempt to decrease the likelihood of future September 11th events from happening again".

Funny side note: The aircraft was previously owned by Kenny Rogers and the Seattle Seahawks.

Political side note: Connections of Brent Kovar (founder of Sky Way) to Tom DeLay (US congressman from Texas).

And someone is linking the whole affair to the CIA (Can someone point me to the original story?). Some people say this is the reason to the mysterious resignation of CIA director Porter Gross. They even make connections to Iran-Contra (Remember? The US selling arms to the Mullahs? The same Mullahs they want to bomb away now? If I were in charge in Iran now, I would build nuclear bombs to keep the US away, you know.) because the airplane used to be owned by Finove Capital, the same company involved in the Iran-Contra affair (I can't find "serious" sources for this, but my time is limited).

And it goes on:

The registered owner of the aircraft is: Royal Sons Inc., 15875 Fairchild Drive, Clearwater, Florida.

On April 5, 2006, the plane flew from St. Petersburg/Clearwater International to Simon Bolivar International in Caracas. "Sky Ways" has also been linked to the Saudi government and Bush family/CIA activities. Royal Sons, the name of which may indicate the involvement of Saudi princes, such as the cocaine-transporting Prince Nayif, also maintained an office at 224 East Airport Ave., Venice (Florida), at the same time lead hijacker Mohammad Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi were training at Huffman Aviation, which was located near by at 400 East Airport Avenue.
http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=55262

This article goes on to draw connections between Satellite Access Systems (a former scam of Brant Kovar), the Banque Francaise de L'Orient, the Saudis, Skyways Aircraft Leasing and James Bath (George W. Bush's Texas Air National Guard friend).

Please, please, someone tell me that this is not true, that this is a lie (and please send links). I can't find any "serious" sources for the "cocaine-transporting Prince Nayif" and I don't have the time to verify this. The last allegations seem from conspiracy land to me and I would welcome any "serious" sources for this.

Then again, it could all be a mistake:

We took the Seal off. Forget about the Seal.

Frederic Geffon from Royal Sons LLC, the Florida air charter company which the FAA listed as the last registered American owner of "Cocaine One," was happy to talk about Brent and Glenn Kovar's most recent (last year) bankruptcy.

"Their company is a scam and heÂ’s a scammer. I got sold a bill of goods about his stock. Everybody out here at the (Clearwater-St. Pete International) airport invested with him, and we all lost it all."

In an exclusive interview, Geffon was quick to point out that the DC9 was no longer his concern when it left the general aviation terminal at Clearwater-St. Pete on April 5th heading for Caracas and its ignominious rendezvous with destiny.

Moreover, he told us, the phony Homeland Security Seal was no longer on it, a statement confirmed by photos of the plane taken in Mexico after its interdiction (see photo above.)
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0605/S00134.htm

Then again, it could all be a web of lies surrounding the true owner of an aircraft.

Make up your mind. How professional is that? Imagine selling an airplane, let someone fly away with it to Caracas on 04/05/2006 and having it still registered at your name until 04/13/2006, two days after the airplane is seized in Mexico with 5.5 tons of cocaine on board?

After all that scrutiny one has to go through to fly as a tourist from Europe to the US, you can have a commercial airplane with unknown owner, unclear registration, flying around with drugs?

And forget Homeland Security. Homeland Security is a organization dedicated on keeping control on US citzens, maybe hustling a "non-citizen" (as in foreigner) from time to time.

I advise all terrorists, buy commercial airplanes in the US and fly them into buildings. It doesn't seem to be a problem almost five years after 9/11, if you have some cash. You can even get the money back by having put options...

And don't be surprised if the US starts to make propaganda against Mexico for not keeping this one quiet.

And oh, lest I forget, there is a second aircraft, N120NE (ex N8500, N60FM, N901B, N2H, HB-IFA), with the same history as N900SA (dubbed "Cocaine One"). And you might want to check N391SA.

If you want to see how to play hide and seek with aircraft registration numbers, google for: N168D ("Devon Holding and Leasing Inc"), N196D ("Devon Holding and Leasing Inc"), N44982 ("PREMIERE EXECUTIVE TRANSPORT SERVICES INC", "N126CH INC", "Bayard Foreign Marketing", ex N379P, N8068V, N581GA), N4476S ("Keeler & Tate Management"), N85VM ("Boston Red Sox Gulfstream G-IV"), N227SV (ex N85VM), N221SG, N505LL, N120JM, N212CP, N221SG ...

And surely it is a coincidence, that Sky Way Enterprise from Kissimmee, FL (just 135 miles from the company Sky Way in Venice) has a DC-9, registration number N112PS ...

N900SA - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(via fefe)

With a license, you don't own the product

Watch out if companies stop selling you products and start "selling" you licenses. Because a license is nothing more than a lease on a product. You don't own it. You can hardly sell it. The company can ask for more money. And best of all, the company can take the product away from you again.

And there are only a few reasons for leasing a product:
- You only need it for a short time and save a lot of money compared to buying the product
- You have some sort of service contract and get a new and improved product every once in a while, but do this only when you know that the "old" product won't do in one or two years time. An example would be a machine or a car you use a lot.
- Your product requires a regular service not covered by the product price
- You have tax reasons
- You want to spread out the product price over a amount of time

Maybe I missed a point or two, don't hesitate to add you input!

So in some circumstances, it makes sense for you to lease instead of buy, but the decision should be up to the user. If a company starts to enforce one option and stop another option, be very wary.

So does it make sense to lease games, software or music? I guess only for the company receiving the money from you.

Sony rumored to be limiting PS3 game resales | News.blog | CNET News.com

And in related news:

Final Fantasy Turns Into Final Nightmare For Xbox 360 - Thomas Hawk

Web 2.0 - Under new management

Seems like O'Reilly has the rights to Web 2.0...

Up in arms over who owns 'Web 2.0' | News.blog | CNET News.com

Hehe. The content mafia...

MPAA accused of hiring a hacker | CNET News.com

Apple will have to work on the security of its software

page 14 [of Apple's "secure coding guidelines"]

"So far, Mac OS X has not fallen prey to any major, automated attack like the MyDoom virus. There are several reasons for this. One is that Mac OS X is based on open source software such as BSD; many hackers have searched this software over the years looking for security vulnerabilities, so that not many vulnerabilities remain. Another is that the default installation of Mac OS X turns off all networking services that might be used to exploit vulnerabilities. Also, the email and internet clients used most commonly on Mac OS X do not have privileged access to the operating system and are less vulnerable to attack than those used on some other common operating systems. Finally, Apple has an active program of reviewing the operating system and applications for security vulnerabilities and issues downloadable security updates frequently."

The fact that something is opensource software and that it has been audited before is no guarantee whatsoever that it's more secure then a commercial equivalent. There has been a lot of disscusion around this, and people have concluded that it can have the potential to be more secure but it doesn't have to be. In this particular case they use BSD as an example. Every once in a while I audit BSD code, and there is nothing magically secure about it, plenty of security bugs in there to go around.

So OSX turns off all network deamons by default. But the firewall is off by default last time I checked, there is dhcp parsing code IN THE FUCKING KERNEL, and it does send out an recieve mdns constantly.

So the email client, browser, and other utils don't run as root. So if you own them you don't instantly own the box. That's what local root exploits are for, it's a very common 2-step thing ! I know this is defense in depth, but I wouldn't go so far as to brag about it, it might bite you in the ass later.

The Idea that apple's browser and email client are less vulnerable to attack then others is total bullcrap. In fact, the opposite is true. When I did browser fuzzing safari was ALWAYS the first to break. It's simply not up to par with IE and Firefox when it comes to parsing input !

I don't know if all this is true, but once more and more people are going to switch to Macs, Apple will have a serious security problem if they don't change their attitude.

ilja's blog: Apple Secure Coding Guide

Microsoft gets nasty

At the same time that Apple gets more friendly?

:-)

Coding Horror: You may be a victim of software counterfeiting.

You need to be open to new ideas to attract them - Duh.

That's the connection between technology and liberalism. Without exception the high-tech cities in the US are also the most liberal. But it's not because liberals are smarter that this is so. It's because liberal cities tolerate odd ideas, and smart people by definition have odd ideas.

And only odd and new ideas create new business, new wealth.

No liberal climate => No economic growth.

Paul Graham - How to Be Silicon Valley

Best deal in town

If earlier you usually paid premium for Apple’s laptops and desktops compared to Wintel PCs of similar performance, now you can get a MacBook cheaper then most of its PC rivals. The Apple MacBook is cheaper as a PC even if you have to purchase standalone Windows XP OS and run it on MacBook via Bootcamp. Is there any reason not to buy a MacBook if you want a highly portable 13” notebook?

and

I spent quite a bit of time searching for x86 laptops of similar spec and form factor, and there's just no avoiding it: the Apple x86 laptops are a great deal for the price.

Coding Horror: Apple Laptops: Good, Cheap, Fast -- pick three

Low opinion of other people is socially acceptable :-)

By definition, you’re a racist if you believe that ordinary Muslims are incapable of acting rationally, unless you believe exactly the same thing about yourself and everyone else. In that case you just have a low opinion of people in general, and that’s socially acceptable.

The Dilbert Blog: Those Crazier-than-I-Think Terrorists

"the greatest work of art in the entire cosmos"

Rather old article from September 2001, but interesting to read nonetheless.

classical music - andante - "the greatest work of art in the entire cosmos"

It's not a trick - It's big brother!

...I tried, on multiple occasions to discuss their (insane / arbitrary / uneducated / unenlightened, dicatatorial) censorship policies in more detail-- but lo and behold, no one in management would speak with me...nor would they respond (meaningfully) in writing on this subject.

..They would not specify which photos of mine offended them, or what point of policy I had allegedly violated, making me play "guess our prejudice" instead...then they sent me a 24 hour deletion notice and detonated my entire archives.

This was my first and only warning.

The Big Brother mentality convinced me to ban Sony and all Sony products for life.

http://flickr.com/groups/nocensorship/discuss/158679/1337222/ Sony image-sharing site terminates account without explantion - Flickr-Group: No Censorship

Funny, the same thing happend to me on flickr: They deleted my account, but I didn't even get a warning. The Big Brother mentality convinced me to ban Yahoo and all Yahoo products for life.

What really happened on 9/11?

I'm afraid we will never know. The US government has no interest of finding the truth. Anybody else does not have the means.

911 Loose Change
and
Daylight Atheism � Loose Marbles I: Debunking 9/11 Conspiracy Theories

Resons why the US should not attack Iran

Strategically, China and Russia have energy agreements worth billions of dollars signed with the Iranian government, soon also to involve India and Pakistan, if they don't already. To imagine that these countries would not react in any way to an attack on their energy security is disingenuous at best. China, it should be remembered, now totally controls the fate of the American economy through its massive US dollar reserves, and could destroy it in one stroke should it so desire. The US is unprotected against such a response should it occur, and would not survive it. Nor would the economies of the UK or the world, but especially the western world.

Is this true?

On the other hand, many people in the US military want to smack China anyway...

The grave risks of a US attack on Iran - Your Letters - The Herald

(via fefe)

For a handful of dollars

Copper wires with an estimated value in the thousands of dollars stolen from power substation, paper mills have to almost shut down production.

The costs and implications likely will swell beyond the raw street value of the stolen copper wires.

Welcome to the global econonmy! If everything you buy is build in China by slaves paid a dime a year, and the biggest expense factor is raw material, well, they will try to reduce this expense factor. You get what you pay for.

I'm just waiting for the day China starts to secure its supply of energy and raw materials, in the same style the US do...

Copper wire theft linked to power disruptions - Doug Kesseli (176)

(via fefe)

Clearly something is wrong

The Copyright Act permits a copyright owner to claim $150,000 per infringement, and the RIAA has been using that figure when they've sued individuals. However, they claim that they only lose 300 million per year due to piracy, which would equate to only 2000 songs downloaded per year.
Donny's Blog - sarcasm, rants, technology

The entire world economy will collapse

And it's all the fault of music pirates. Arrrgh!

Donny's Blog - sarcasm, rants, technology

$150,000 a song

One Month of Statutory Damages Is More Than The GDP of France - The Digital Music Weblog

A Clockwork Red White Blue - A nightmare that Kafka would be proud of

"This illustrates to me the dangerous nature of the men we have detained here," the detention center's commanding officer, Navy Rear Adm. Harry Harris, told reporters in a teleconference, describing Thursday's attack.

Imagine being held in place, where you couldn't leave, where you are not told why you are here, where you don't know if you can ever leave, where there is nothing to do, where you couldn't even end your own life.

And then then tell me you would not attack your guards.

I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That's my
dream. That's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a
straight razor, and surviving.

USATODAY.com - Guantanamo prison guards, inmates clash

Non-Citizens have no rights

That is, non US citizens. And the US seems to have every right to interfere with other nations.

Here is a blog entry about the UN wanting to shut down Guantanamo and the riots. And the comments there are really good. Top of its class.

United Nations is an international organization comprise most of the countries of the world, formed in 1945 to promote peace, security and economic development. United Nations Committees should go after Osama bi Laden/Zar-coward terrorists if they are concern about torture. These SAVAGES are in Gitmo and other prisons becausing of torturing human beings including children. Where is the United We Stand to defend our country (USA) as American Citizens.We like to know what countries are on this United Nation Committees commanding that USA close Gitmo/other prison where the terrorist are kept? United Nations should concentrate and help to end terrorism organize by Osama bi Laden/Zarcoward, etc.

...

Have you ever actually READ the Geneva Convention's contents? It only applies to uniformed soldiers representing a country at war who ALSO follow its guidlines. As long as terrorists keep blowing up civilians and beheading prisoners, guess what, they ain't protected under nuthin.

...

Wish the prison wouldnt need to exist, but how else would we hold possible terrorists. Give them a house arrest tracker or/and a poral officer to report to til' they are proven guilty?

...

We are being so kind, those combatants caught out of uniform on the battlefield can be legally executed.

We don't need to "Find them guilty." We had all we needed when they chose cowardice and blending into the civilian population over uniforms.

...

So go ahead and cry and bawl all you like. The enemy combatants are NOT P.O.W.s, they have no rights, and their souls belong to us now.

As far as our Constitution goes, try reading it before you tell us what it means. Foreign powers are strictly forbidden from having any say in American government. So if I was not an American, and wanted something, I'd ask very nicely, never demand, and consider anything I recieved to be pure kindness.

...

I know Canada is part of the British empire but you should really try to figure out what it's like having sovereignty. You may think more clearly or at least think before you call us ignorant.

...

But there are a few, only few, other comments.

US Cit.. that's rich... lecturing others on the definition of sovereignty & it's value while at the same time defending the creation of a concentration camp on another country's soil to hold yet other countries' citizens without charging them with any crime.

Good one! Real funny!

The US - The less evil empire! ™

USATODAY.com - On Deadline: Archives

Fuck the Main Stream Media

It appears that Rumsfeld thinks no one really pays attention. Sadly, as regards the mainstream press, he has been largely right – at least until now.

My Meeting With Rumsfeld - by Ray McGovern

Ray McGovern writes

Bowing to the Police State - by Ray McGovern

To disassemble

verb

dis·as·sem·ble

disassemble, dismantle, come apart, take apart, break up, break apart, decompose

1. To come apart: The web of lies is disassembling.
2. To break up in random fashion: Donald H. Rumsfeld's respones began to disassemble.

(via fefe)

And why is the mass media not asking these questions?

Contentmafia

But he is reluctant to publish the somewhat bizarre story of the rest of his life because, thanks to a legal quirk, he no longer owns the rights to the characters. According to the agreement under which the rights to The Graduate were sold, Canal Plus, the French media company [and new owner], would be able to make a film of Home School without his consent.

So they bully authors into giving away all rights to current and future works. They have no rights to get morally about copying films...
The Graduate's sequel a tale of hard times | World Wide Weird | The Australian

Fuck, this is cool

So cool

And anybody suggesting this is something similar to a DELL notebook should be shot.

Don't make the haystack bigger

IMHO this bottom-up approach of uncloaking a network is more effective than a top down search for the terrorist needle in the public haystack -- and it is less invasive of the general population, resulting in far fewer "false positives".

Connect the Dots -- Social Network Analysis and 9-11
(via telepolis)

Don't scar on the first cut

Policies are codified overreactions to unlikely-to-happen-again situations. A collective punishment for the wrong-doings of a one-off. And unless you want to treat the people in your environment as five year-olds, “Because The Policy Said So” is not a valid answer.

Don't scar on the first cut - Signal vs. Noise (by 37signals)

the "Pentagon missile" hoax?

none saw a cruise missile, Global Hawk robot plane, smaller plane or flying saucer piloted by giant lizards

the "Pentagon missile" hoax distracts and discredits the 9/11 skeptics

(via fefe)

We need more Nukes on TV

After seeing so many lone heroes fighting the ceaseless onslaught of nuclear bomb wielding Arab terrorists at the US, I hereby predict the next hits for US TV.

Friends: Ross sees that Ugly Naked Guy is building a nuclear device. See how Phoebe helps him to dismantle the device and almost causes a 3rd World War and how Monica thinks that Chandler has a relation with the Ugly Naked Guy. Don't miss Joey using Plutonium for a BBQ.

Seinfeld: George gets arrested by Homeland Security because they believe he is a Arab terrorist building a nuclear device. In prison he gets to know an actual Arab terrorist and his plans to destroy the US. George and Kramer are able to find the HQ of the Arab terrorists, but almost fail without the help of Jerry. See Elaine discussing her relationship problems with Mahmud Eppersani, the leader of the Arab terrorists.

Law & Order: See the gripping legal drama between good and bad as a small team from the New York City homicide department and lawyers from the Manhattan District Attorney's office try to prove that the explosion of a nuclear device in NYC was not a case of self defense.

Walker, Texas Ranger: See Walker beat the hell out of Arab terrorists. Oh, and he dismantles a nuclear device with an elegant Low Kick.

Herbie: See Herbie talk a nuclear device out of exploding. Simply lovable.

Magnum, P.I.: An Navy Admiral and old friend of Magnum from the Vietnam war claims that the Vietnamese want to kill him. As Magnum investigates, he finds evidence that his friend is betraying the US by smuggling nuclear material stolen from the Vietnamese and selling it to Arab terrorists. Together with the Vietnamese Secret Service they are able to recover the nuclear material and apprehend the US traitor. Don't miss Higgins telling a story how he build a nuclear grenade while serving in south east Asia and Rick trying to sell the nuclear material to some tourists.

Home Improvement: Tim builds by accident a nuclear device, while improving his hot rod. After consulting with Wilson he decides to dismantle it only to discover it stolen by Arab terrorists. See Tim recover the nuclear device with the help of Al. Don't miss Jill talking about how she build a civil nuclear reactor for school when she was a girl.

Star Trek: The crew of the Enterprise fly back in time to save the US from a attack with nuclear devices by Arab terrorists. Don't miss Spock swimming with nuclear submarines and Pavel Andreievich Chekov stealing a nuclear wessel while James T. Kirk tries to win over a 20th century woman.

ER: An Arab terrorist is brought to the ER with abdominal pain. While operating, Dr. John Carter discovers a nuclear device. See how the amazing Dr. Kerry Weaver keeps everything under control. Don't miss Nurse Carol Hathaway giving birth to quadruplets.

X-Files: Mulder discovers that aliens are using Arab terrorists to attack the US with nuclear bombs. Don't miss the unconscious Scully missing how Mulder dismantles the bombs before they are beamed away by other aliens.

NCSI Nevada - Nuclear Crime Scene Investigation: See these experts determine the cause of every nuclear explosion in the US with criminologist perfection.

The West Wing: See U.S. President Bartlet ordering a preemptive strike on a Arab country building nuclear weapons.

"OMG! PATTERNS!"

Developers who actively seek to apply patterns to every coding problem are adding unnecessary complexity. Far from being something you look to add to your code, you should feel bad every time you are forced to code up another design pattern, it means you are doing busy work that makes things more complex and is of dubious benefit. But hey, your code has design patterns, and no one can take that from you.

Damien Katz: Signs You're a Crappy Programmer (and don't know it)

What makes me hate firefox

Stupid.

Preset.

That.

Makes.

My.

Computer.

Hang.

Every.

Time.

I.

Download.

Something.

Fuck.

Firefox hangs - MozillaZine Knowledge Base - Hang downloading files

Ann Xprt? Shhhure!

newswireless.net .:. Blog .:. Really, what matters is that the BBC ...

(watch the WMV video here)

Feds Search Home, Office of CIA Official

The CIA's third ranking official, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, has been under investigation by the FBI, IRS, Defense Criminal Investigative Service, the CIA's inspector general and the U.S. attorney's office in San Diego, said FBI spokeswoman April Langwell in San Diego.

Fefe's Blog

Wired News: DOJ Drops Wiretap Investigation

The government has abruptly ended an inquiry into the warrantless eavesdropping program because the National Security Agency refused to grant Justice Department lawyers security clearance.

The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, or OPR, sent a fax Wednesday to Democratic Rep. Maurice Hinchey of New York saying it was closing its inquiry because without clearance it could not examine department lawyers' role in the program.

"We have been unable to make any meaningful progress in our investigation because OPR has been denied security clearances for access to information about the NSA program," OPR counsel H. Marshall Jarrett wrote to Hinchey. Hinchey's office shared the letter with The Associated Press.

Wired News: DOJ Drops Wiretap Investigation

Danger, Windows Developer!

Dangers you are not aware of when writing software for Windows...
The Old New Thing : Subtle ways your innocent program can be Internet-facing

WTF is in Pleasanton ???

Google Trends: flickr

A Clockwork Red White Blue - This is getting boring

Really. This is getting boring. The NSA has phone call records of tens of millions of Americans? Is this a bad Hollywood action movie staring Tom Cruise?

USATODAY.com - NSA has massive database of Americans' phone calls

The US is not a country

The US is fucking joke. It has a monkey instead of a president, company representatives for a parlament, a army where others have a employment program and machines in place of voters.
Schneier on Security: Major Vulnerability Found in Diebold Election Machines

A Clockwork Red White Blue - No photos please!

"Some of it is pretty scary with some of the things that have happened," said Robert Lee, regional security manager for Valero. "Surveillance is one of the ways these terrorist units conduct their planning. These things have to be investigated."

What things have happend? What terrorist units?

By the way, if I want to do surveillance on the Valero refinery, I would go here...
Measure calls for picture security

Electronic Nirvana

Just stumbled over Sheryl Crow on a website and I was thinking, nice, I would like to hear a song from her again, when iTunes' Party-Jukebox decides to play, tada, Sheryl Crow.

Defintly a glitch in the matrix, but makes me glad to have taken the blue pill.

Some people in the US are angy

I’m angry about the shredding of the constitution…illegal wiretaps…falsified intelligence…secret prisons… use of torture as an accepted means of interrogation…Terry Schiavo…the war on science…denial of Global Warming…the fascistic secrecy of our elected officials… presidential signings that declare the President above the law…the breakdown of the wall between church and state…the outing of a clandestine CIA agent for purely partisan political gain…the corrupting influence of K Street… the total sell-out of the legislative process to corporate interests… appointments of unqualified cronies at every level of government…Harriet Miers…Brownie…Abu Ghraib… Scooter …the complete mismanagement of the war in Iraq…the lies about the complete mismanagement of the war in Iraq…the grotesque budget deficits… the pathetic response to Katrina… a civil rights division dedicated to undermining civil rights…an environmental protection agency that refuses to protect the environment… (Take a breath, Angry Liberal Guy.)

And I’m angry about a smug, simple-minded, incompetent, unqualified President, and a press that denies the obvious fact that we have a smug, simple-minded, incompetent unqualified President.

If these things don’t make you angry, I have to ask -- what the hell is the matter with you?

And what would it take to make you angry?

I think it is good to be angry. Angry about the right things.
Boing Boing: Angry liberal guy rant

Why We Know

that Iraq Iran the US is Lying.

Many questions remain about Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs.

But the US is not going to give honest answers for these questions.

"Why We Know Iraq is Lying" A Column by Dr. Condoleezza Rice

It's always game time

adbeast screening room

A reason why the British are in Iraq?

The British still own the US money. For WWI. That is the world war before WWII.

BBC NEWS | Magazine | What's a little debt between friends?

US wants to smuggle 200,000 AK47s from Bosnia to Iraq

And looses them?!? 99 tons of weapons?

Mirror.co.uk - News - HAVE 200,000 AK47S FALLEN INTO THE HANDS OF IRAQ TERRORISTS?

(via fefe)

Why Don't Ad Agencies Advertise?

IF ADVERTISING is so effective, why don't ad agencies advertise? PR firms tout themselves in releases. Event planners throw their own parties. E-marketers use the Internet. These folks all believe in the effectiveness of their disciplines. Do ad agencies disagree?

Re:Focus: Why Don't Ad Agencies Advertise?
(via 37signals)

"Guests have a tendency to get shot at — a lot."

Boing Boing: This Spartan Life machinima show on Network Neutrality

If I should ever fly to the US ...

... I will order a halal meal.

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Q. What could this boarding pass tell an identity fraudster about you? A. Way too much

(via Schneier)

Currently reading:

Photoshop API Guide

Damn, reading the document, how they describe hosts and plug-ins, reminds me of the time when I have rewritten parts of the PowerCore SDK Documentation. How they try to address people who have never seen a plug-in. How it seems to come from someone who tried to communicate the problems he had, or the problems he might think the reader might have. How you can see a person writing the document. How he tries to focus on the way you are going to implemnt a plug-in, not on the way they implemented the API.

A host, is a host, is a host.

And a software developer will always be a software developer. Damn, I need to write software again, no, I need to release a product again. Bring out something someone needs. Create something out of electrons. Damn, damn, damn, I need a mission. Someone else's mission, I suck at fighting my own missions.

[Update] The Photoshop API Guide needs a rewrite, they talk about 680x0, systems with 32 MB RAM and the Apple MPW compiler...

And don't get me started on this:

Photoshop plug–ins for Windows can be created using Microsoft® Visual C++, version 2.0 or later (which requires Windows NT version 3.5 or later, or Windows 95). This toolkit has been checked under Visual C++ 5.0 and Windows NT 4.0.

I will not ...

... confuse Hugh Laurie with Damian Lewis in the future.

"Ho Ho Ho. Now I have a light saber!"

The way I see it, McClane runs around for about 20 hours, kills about 37,000 storm troopers, suffers injuries which, if inflicted on mere mortals, would require 450 stitches, and still gets enough free time to figure out how the Death Star works, all with the help of a twinkie-eating police officer back on Earth whom he is communicating with on a souped-up ham radio. After 20 hours, McClane figures out the same chain reaction Achilles' Heel the Jedis knew about. After a few hours work, he sets it off just as the Death Star is preparing to fire. McClane, of course, barely escapes the explosion in a hijacked TIE-fighter.

John McClane vs. The Death Star @ WWWF Grudge Match

A Clockwork Red White Blue - There is a Constitution?

So what are your rights if your name is unjustly on the watch-list, and you'd like to be able to move about the country without being singled out by airport screeners and possibly even traffic cops for extra attention? The answer is, unfortunately, that some of your basic Constitutional rights are effectively non-existent if you happen to get caught somewhere in America's growing terrorist dragnet.

Terrorist watch list follies, and my time in the TSA's Constitution-free zone

The problem with MPAA's shocking piracy numbers

[Contrast] these statements:

WSJ authors: "But now a study shows the damage is far worse than expected"

MPAA spokeswoman, indirect discourse: "She says the numbers weren't far out of line with what the industry expected."

So which is it? Far worse or not far out of line? The Journal's "source" seems to be primarily interested in drama.

Of course, the drama steals focus from the real questions (by design?), including those relating to the study's methodology. Instead, we're to assume that these studies are trustworthy, and that is a huge assumption. Why? Because whether you're the Wall Street Journal or Ars Technica, you don't get to see the study. It's private. What you get to see are "summary" points which you're supposed to take on face value. I won't repeat everything that the press materials say, because you can read them for yourself (PDF). I do want to hit some highlights, however, and note some of the massively problematic gaps in the story that should have been raised by "reporters" across the country, but weren't.

The problem with MPAA's shocking piracy numbers

Never trust what you hear, read or see in the media. Never.

Now contrast these statements:

WSJ authors: "But now a study shows the damage is far worse than expected"

MPAA spokeswoman, indirect discourse: "She says the numbers weren't far out of line with what the industry expected."

So which is it? Far worse or not far out of line? The Journal's "source" seems to be primarily interested in drama.

Of course, the drama steals focus from the real questions (by design?), including those relating to the study's methodology. Instead, we're to assume that these studies are trustworthy, and that is a huge assumption. Why? Because whether you're the Wall Street Journal or Ars Technica, you don't get to see the study. It's private. What you get to see are "summary" points which you're supposed to take on face value. I won't repeat everything that the press materials say, because you can read them for yourself (PDF). I do want to hit some highlights, however, and note some of the massively problematic gaps in the story that should have been raised by "reporters" across the country, but weren't.

The problem with MPAA's shocking piracy numbers

Care about almost nothing except getting a good project out the door

Hmm, getting a product out. How I miss that.
Nerdherding for Beginners � Blog Archive � First make someone responsible and put them in the middle

Nothing to kill or die for

gulli: Imagine, GWB: BBC strahlt Lennon/Bush-Mashup aus

The biggest terrorist in the world today

If would have asked the British 60 years ago: "Who is the biggest terrorist in the world today?", I think they might have given you mainly one name.

He issued a call to arms and from 1945-1948 the Irgun launched an all-out armed rebellion, attacking British installations and posts. He planned the bombing of the British administrative and military headquarters (at the luxurious King David Hotel) in Jerusalem that killed 91 people, including British officers and troops as well as Arab and Jewish civilians.
Menachem Begin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I don't care who is, according to the British, the biggest terrorist in the world today. The British (and the US) troops should get the fuck out of Iraq and take with them any other forces from the coalition of the gullible. Just because you have the means to invade a country doesn't mean you have to do it. Isn't it ironic that the world would have been a safer place today with Saddam Hussein still in power?

A Clockwork Red White Blue - What if the "civil war" in Iraq was intentional?

Was it intented by the US government, that the war in Iraq turned into a civil war?

By the way, two really nice paragraphs about CNN in hotels. Several months before the Iraq war, I was in a hotel and in the lobby was a TV with CNN on. The sound was muted, but the text screamed "BREAKING NEWS!!! IRAQ!!!!". I thought: "Oh my god, they started a war!", but it was some silly unimportent event.

The lifts in the New York Hilton played CNN on a small screen you could not avoid watching. Iraq was top of the news; pronouncements about a "civil war" and "sectarian violence" were repeated incessantly. It was as if the US invasion had never happened and the killing of tens of thousands of civilians by the Americans was a surreal fiction. The Iraqis were mindless Arabs, haunted by religion, ethnic strife and the need to blow themselves up. Unctuous puppet politicians were paraded with no hint that their exercise yard was inside an American fortress.

And when you left the lift, this followed you to your room, to the hotel gym, the airport, the next airport and the next country. Such is the power of America's corporate propaganda, which, as Edward Said pointed out in Culture and Imperialism, "penetrates electronically" with its equivalent of a party line.

New Statesman - John Pilger detects the Salvador Option

A Clockwork Red White Blue - How To Steal an Election

How To Steal an Election - Washington Post
(via fefe)

Two pieces of sh*t

when i choose mirascan from the import option of softwares
like photoshop in win xp, it crashes after the pre loader screen

However when I try to use the scanner, Mirascan apperas on the

XP will not recognise my scanner

the Mirascan software to run the scanner cannot find it on XP

Scanner not working with windows xp

Problems with the ACER MiraScan 620pt flatbed scanner

Cant get scanner to work with XP

scanner probs in xp

Acer Scanner 640P not working
... Please tell me one thing that did u install mira scan again after ... I uninstalled Mirascan
then reinstalled ... Windows ME as I have a dual boot for Windows XP and ME

mirascan windows xp - Google Groups

You just can't make this stuff up

Schneier on Security: A Real Movie-Plot Threat

Hackers copy music, eat children and are terrorists in general

Moreover, Apple agreed to improve the digital rights management software that makes it difficult for hackers to copy or post songs purchased on iTunes to Internet file-sharing networks.

WTF? The LA Times should look up Hacker

A hacker is a person who creates and modifies computer software and computer hardware, including computer programming, administration, and security-related items.
...
In computer security, a hacker is a person able to exploit a system or gain unauthorized access through skill and tactics. This usually refers to a black hat hacker.

A hacker finds a exploits in a system, he does not "copy or post" music "on the internet".

Apple Renews 99-Cent Song Deals - Los Angeles Times

You bring the cause and we bring the bombs

Live never stops to amaze me. A jewish terrorist group. Well, they are no longer actively engaged in terrorist actions.
Jewish Defense League - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You're a terrorist and we will bomb you away!

As one of the few Arab-Americans in Congress, Issa has had a significant but sometimes controversial role in U.S. peace initiatives in the Middle East. He traveled to Lebanon as well as Syria in an effort to negotiate the withdrawal of the Syrian presence in Lebanon. In 2003, he appeared at a Washington rally by Iranian groups protesting against the Islamic government in Iran.

Activist Debbie Schlussel wrote a column calling him "Jihad Darrell", charging that he sympathized with Hezbollah despite its being listed by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization. Issa denied this; he later speculated that Schlussel's column might have inspired an aborted Jewish Defense League plot in 2001 to bomb his district office in San Clemente. JDL leader Irving Rubin was arrested along with Earl Krugel in connection with the plot, which reportedly had focused on other targets before shifting to Issa's office.

Darrell Issa - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Iraq a training group for US gangs?

Gangs claim their turf in Iraq

A child dies in Africa for every MP3 stream you record

EFF: The Season of Bad Laws, Part 3: Banning MP3 Streaming

A Clockwork Red White Blue - Unless his Highness decides to disobey the law

Bush challenges hundreds of laws - The Boston Globe

A Clockwork Red White Blue - A night in jail for peace signs

At Wellesley, arrest over chalk writing leaves a mark - The Boston Globe

Buy or die you little bitch

Woot : Winners' Gallery: the Best of Contest 69
Modify a classic propaganda poster (or create a new one) for one side or the other in the pro- and anti-Microsoft conflict.