Letter Never Sent

No words for the World Trade Center attack. Absolutely insane, terrible. Although, I wonder if the raid on the muslim webhosting business has anything to do with this. It’s likely that people in the government had word of some planned attack and took measures to try to give the impression that they knew something was afoot. I would be sure to check out cryptome after this. No doubt there will be plenty of info at a later time.

There have been a bunch of really great stories:

• The FBI doing what they should do, cleaning up the legions of corrupt cops out there.
• Since April, the Chinese government has executed 3000 people as part of a government ‘crackdown’ on crime, many of whom confessed to crimes under torture. I saw some news magazine piece describing the sale of kidneys from executed Chinese prisoners to people in Malaysia and Indonesia. The article in the NY Times goes on to say that the death toll could hit 10,000 by the end of the year. Maybe after Bush does his one term here he can go be the Chinese premier or something. There’s definitely a shared philosophy in there somewhere.
• More evidence of life on Mars. Black spots growing and shrinking in the Martian spring indicating the presence of photosynthetic organisms. This is neat. I guess we’ll have to start training some xenobiologists.
• Another draconian copyright bill is headed to congress. Everyone who reads this should email or write their senator immediately. It will require all consumer electronics to use copyright-management software. Infoanarchy covers it well.
• Is it 1984 in your workplace?
• Idiotic bill to stop leaks to the press stopped.

The american secret police, the FBI, have raided a Muslim web hosting business: The raid also comes just two weeks after two Muslim bashers openly called upon the FBI in a Wall Street Journal column to shut down the web sites of IAP and HLF (Islamic Association for Palestine and the Holy Land Foundation). Steven Emerson and Daniel Pipes wrote in the August 13 issue, “The time has also come for the US to support Israel in rolling back the forces of terror”. Now must be the time for the new propaganda of fear. Some sort of anti-islamicist crusade. It reminds me of the bit from ‘1984’ about keeping the populace in a state of constant war to maintain control. We live in a country where Ford pays to air Schindler’s List on television but where anything supporting Islam or the arab people is considered criminal. It’s disgusting. The fact is, Israel was established on land that other people had already lived on. In fact, their family homes are now lived in by Israeli settlers. The bias towards Israel just astounds me. It reminds me of this forum on CSPAN-books about World War 2. The Rape of Nanking, where the Japanese military brutally murdered millions of Chinese people, came up in the discussion and it was stated that the Japanese were responsible for the deaths of 12-35 million people in China during WW2. Yet, in the US all we hear about is The Holocaust. This is not to mention the German campaign into Russia where further millions of people died. However, in the United States all you hear about in respect to World War 2 genocides is The Holocaust. Why is this? It surely has something to do with the fact that the Soviet Union and China were both Communist countries. Yet, the 1-2 million european jews to the 12-35 million chinese people. There has got to be some parity.

• The Rape of Nanking: some excellent links and some disturbing photos.
• Siege of Leningrad at Discovery.com
• Political writings of George Orwell

This time a huge number of hits are coming to this site because of the links I made to sites offering Nokia ringtones. Last month it was searches on Sopranos episodes for download.

Some friends have got their new album out. They’re called Hurtafly and the album is called “Galaxy” I think. Anyway, for the time being you can grab a listen here. Eventually, it will be moved to somewhere else so listen to it now in hi-fi streaming mp3. Unfortunately, I don’t know the url of their website, but be sure to give them a listen. When you do try downloading the LNS winamp skin.

Interesting stuff about advertising’s ability to change your memory. Yet another instance of cro-magnon copyright ‘experts’ weighing in on the adverse effects of the internet on their business…this time pirates are trying to steal their pictures! Can this whole issue be any more absurd? I think the idea of intellectual property is outdated. If you package things for public consumption it belongs to the public. Period. If you’re an artist who wants to control your work, keep it to yourself and don’t let anyone else see it. The sorts of things these people complain about are ridiculous. Patents and copyrights have gotten entirely out of hand.

The latest evidence that the FBI are a bunch of thugs. Sharpshooters assassinate a marijuana advocate.

Enjoy your short existence by having wild sex. People have been getting down and dirty for a long time. Well, most likely since the beginning of time. Check out the Turin erotic Egyptian papyrus . It is thousands of years old. More recently, in the 1920’s and 30’s you might have come across the Tijuana Bibles, a series of amateurish erotic comic books using characters lifted from mainstream comic strips and pop culture. I thought the ribald portrayal of Wimpy from Popeye was particularly funny. Luckily, some dedicated netizen has scanned some in for your enjoyment.

A great article by RAW: Religion for the Hell of it! by Robert Anton Wilson.

Join me in becoming an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church. The Universal Life Church (http://www.ulc.org) will ordain
anyone to the ministry for free, for life and with no regard to race,
gender, sexual orientation, nationality or theological position. And
they’ll do it online. It doesn’t matter whether you are a Christian, Satanist, Kabbalist,
Wiccan, atheist, or a creator of your own “homemade” religion. The ULC,
from its international headquarters in Modesto, Calif., and its
monastery in Tucson, Ariz., welcomes all.

The ULC actually pre-dates the cyber-era. This unique denomination was
established in 1962 by Kirby J. Hensley, an illiterate former Baptist
from North Carolina. Fed up with the hypocrisy and dogmatism of the
mainstream churches, Hensley began ordaining anybody — without
question — for free. Full page articles about him in Time (21 Feb.
1969) and Newsweek (5 May 1969) added to his status as the Robin Hood
of American religion.

As an ordained minister, I can legally perform marriage ceremonies in all 50 states. Any takers?

Due to the Freedom of Information Act many FBI dossiers are now available online. Every once in a while when I’m bored I like to peruse a few of them. This can be quite an undertaking as some of them are composed of multiple parts and thousands of pages. I spent an hour or so reading the FBI files on Wilhelm Reich, a contemporary of Freud. It was weird and depressing, but I was glad to have access to such primary documentation. Quite often correspondence is initiated by ‘concerned Americans’. This can be the most chilling material. In the case of Reich, such people accused him of being a communist and a pervert who was attempting to subvert american youth.

On the other hand, I found Clarence Darrow’s file amusing. It was almost entirely comprised of an Esquire article in which he describes jury selection and the character of people of certain religious denominations and his reasons for excluding or selecting them. That part of the article, “How to Pick a Jury” can be found in its entirety here. I especially liked the parts about Baptists and other protestants which I could entirely relate to. However, first I will start with some superb quotations from Mr. Darrow:

Whether a jury is a good one or a bad one depends on the point of view. I have always been an attorney for the defense. I can think of nothing, not even war, that has brought so much misery to the human race as prisons. And all of it so futile!

On judges:The judge wears the same flowing robe with all the dignity and superiority he can command. This sets him apart from his fellow-men, and is designed to awe and intimidate and to impress the audience with seeming wisdom oftener than with kindliness and compassion. One cannot help wondering what happens to the pomp and pretense of the wearer while the cloak is in the wash, or while changing into a maturer, more monarchial mantle, as his bench becomes a throne, or when he strolls along the street in file with the “plain clothes” people.

The litigants and their lawyers are supposed to want justice, but in reality there is no such thing as justice, either in or out of court. In fact, the word cannot be defined.

In the last analysis, most jury trials are contests between the rich and poor. If the case concerns money, it is apt to be a case of damages for injuries of some sort claimed to have been inflicted by someone. These cases are usually defended by insurance companies, railroads, or factories. If a criminal case, it is practically always the poor who are on trial. The most important point to learn is whether the prospective juror is humane.

On Baptists as potential jurors *grin*:If possible, the Baptists are more hopeless than the Presbyterians. They, too, are apt to think that the real home of all outsiders is Sheol, and you do not want them on the jury, and the sooner they leave the better.

And finally:If the physician so completely ignored natural causes as the lawyers and judges, the treatment of disease would be relegated to witchcraft and magic, and the dungeon and rack would once more hold high carnival in driving devils out of the sick and afflicted. Many of the incurable victims of crime are like those who once were incurable victims of disease; they are the product of vicious and incompetent soothsayers who control their destinies.

When lawyers and courts, and laymen, accept the scientific theory which the physicians forced upon the world long years ago, then men will examine each so-called delinquency until they discover its cause, and then learn how to remove the cause. This requires sympathy, humanity, love of one’s fellow-man, and a strong faith in the power of knowledge and experience to conquer the maladies of men. The forum of the lawyers may then grow smaller, the courthouse may lose its spell, but the world will profit a thousandfold by a kindlier and more understanding relation toward all humankind. ( Esquire Magazine, May, 1936.)

For more Darrow infotainment:

• Clarence Darrow links
• Absurdities of the Bible
• Voltaire by Clarence Darrow
• The Myth of the Soul by Clarence Darrow
• Facing Life Fearlessly by CD

Lots of ‘news’ today. Borders was using facial recognition software to supposedly identify repeat shoplifters, but they’ve backed down due to bad publicity and consumer complaints. How stupid can you get? That’s okay, I don’t shop at their shitty stores anyway. For having such a huge store their selection leaves much to be desired. Not to mention the obvious liability of being owned by K-mart. Now just one more reason to stay away.

Our presidential jackass, George the second, made fun of a bald reporter at a televised news conference. I really enjoyed the reporter’s response: “I am losing some hair.” I still can’t believe this joker is the prez. I feel like I’m living in a bad movie. Bush has had a real problem with his mouth. First there was the making fun a death-row inmate, Carla Faye Tucker, and then the ‘major league asshole’ reporter.