General – Page 155 – Letter Never Sent

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19
Jun 02

Philip K. Dick and the movies

This is originally from the LA TIMES, but I can’t find a link to it.
Casting a Timeless Shadow: Steven Spielberg’s ‘Minority Report’ is only the latest film based on the work of sci-fi author Philip K. Dick

By BILL DESOWITZ, SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

It has been 20 years since the seminal sci-fi film “Blade Runner” first burst on the scene with its cyberpunk prophecy of a dehumanized 21st century. The dark and dank depiction of L.A. as a technological wonder and existential wasteland–part noir and part sci-fi–may owe its aesthetic to director Ridley Scott, but its vision is that of the late author Philip K. Dick.

It was Dick who was responsible for the thrust of this much imitated paranoid parable: What is reality? And what does it mean to be human? It’s no wonder, then, that Dick’s fingerprints are all over our science-fiction culture: “The X-Files,” “The Matrix,” “A.I.,” “Eyes Wide Shut,” “Vanilla Sky,” “The Truman Show,” “Waking Life,” “Gattaca,” “12 Monkeys” and the upcoming “Simone,” about a computer-generated actress, all have been influenced by Dick’s sensibility.

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17
Jun 02

Experimenting

I was getting really annoyed with Fark.com the other day, so I thought I’d make my own news link site. Here it is. It’s just something to try for a while. It is easily updateable via Movable Type. If you’d like to be a moderator there let me know.

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15
Jun 02

Acquaintance of ‘dirty bomber’ scapegoat arrested for ‘extremist views’

From Reuters: Boy, those morons in the federal government are really grasping at straws. In another case of thought crime an Islamic Florida man was arrested for alleged ties to the so-called ‘dirty bomber’. His apparent crime is that he has what the FBI considers ‘extremist views’. That and he attended the same mosque as the dirty bomber.

Although the details of Hassoun’s affiliation with Muhajir were unclear, both men attended the same mosque in Fort Lauderdale while Muhajir lived in south Florida from 1991 to 1998.

“We have suspicions; that’s it,” a federal source told the Herald. “We are working hard right now to run this all out. We have reason to believe this man has extremist views. They were friends and they attended the same Fort Lauderdale mosque.”

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15
Jun 02

Pat Buchanan as Deep Throat?

From Spike Magazine:

For the past three years students in the Investigative Reporting class of the Department of Journalism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have attempted to enlighten the public as well by seeking to identify the Post’s secret source of information — a man known only as “Deep Throat.”

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15
Jun 02

FBI Found Guilty for 1990 Frameup

Via MSNBC:

A federal jury awarded $4.4 million Tuesday to two members of the environmental activist group Earth First! who claimed that Oakland police and FBI agents framed them for bombing their own car 12 years ago.

Dirty rats. They’ve been dirty their whole history. Why believe they’re doing anything differently? Who knows how much criminality they get away with on a regular basis?

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15
Jun 02

Moussaoui has a secret

From the Washington Post:

Zacarias Moussaoui, the only man indicted as a Sept. 11 conspirator, has told a psychiatrist that he has an undisclosed secret and that his court-appointed lawyers want him killed to keep him from revealing it.

…
Moussaoui told Patterson he had “specific information regarding the Sept. 11 attacks” and, according to the defense, “he claims counsel are conspiring to kill him to keep him from revealing some heretofore undisclosed secret he wants to divulge in open court.” …

Moussaoui told Patterson his lawyers “want to say I’m crazy now, then at guilt phase, he’s sane so they can impose (the) death penalty.” …

Moussaoui is charged with conspiracy to commit terrorism, pirate aircraft, destroy aircraft, use weapons of mass destruction, murder U.S. government employees and destroy property.

I think conspiracy charges are full of crap. You can charge almost anyone with conspiracy for something or other.

Military and defense — Comments Off
15
Jun 02

Interesting article on the worldwide arms industry

From the BBC:

Russia has overtaken the United States to become the world’s leading conventional arms exporter for the first time, increasing deliveries sixfold over the last five years. Russian exports rose 24% in 2001

Of course, the U.S. coincidently removed its arms embargo against India which currently receives 80% of its weaponry from Russia. Maybe they are threatened by the idea of Russia dominating the global arms industry. The Russians always had a very robust and effective educational system when it came to science and engineering. A seldom reported fact, the CIA often purchases Russian made helicopters because American made helicopters are widely held to be unsafe. Remember all those recent military helicopter and plane accidents? American-made. The CIA refuses to use the American military’s helicopters.

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14
Jun 02

The Beast has its weaknesses

A 17-year old Austrian lad was able to hack into the Pentagon and accessed ‘sensitive’ information:

But from the computer in his bedroom, Markus was able to get into the most classified Pentagon sites, including the one which details the silos where missiles with multi-megaton warheads are kept.

“Cracking into the Pentagon was child’s play,” said the teenager. “I know my way round the internet.”

Markus, who lived with his mother in Germany for a while when his parents split up, eventually moved into a small flat in Vienna where he now lives alone.

He added: “I don’t know anyone here, apart from my granny, so I surf all night on the internet.”

Thank God for the young. They’re so inventive.

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14
Jun 02

Good Ole American Style Fascism

Wow. Bush is sounding more and more like a really scary Big Brother figure. In a commencement speech at Ohio State University, our debauched and stupid leader urged graduating seniors to embrace a “culture of service”.

“Your class and generation understand that the responsibility which begins in your life must extend to your nation,” he said. “And so you will make a culture of service a permanent part of American life.”

He then went on to urge all Americans to heed the call of duty to the Homeland.

More ominously attendees were told not to heckle or disrupt the Fuhrer: “But immediately before class members filed into the giant football stadium, an announcer instructed the crowd that all the university’s speakers deserve to be treated with respect and that anyone demonstrating or heckling would be subject to expulsion and arrest. The announcer urged that Bush be greeted with a “thunderous” ovation.”

So, protest and get arrested. Der Kommissar geht um – oh, oh, oh.

the old stuff