Science — 1 comment
24
May 02

World gets more Dickian

From The Economist, The future of mind control:

IN AN attempt to treat depression, neuroscientists once carried out a simple experiment. Using electrodes, they stimulated the brains of women in ways that caused pleasurable feelings. The subjects came to no harm?indeed their symptoms appeared to evaporate, at least temporarily?but they quickly fell in love with their experimenters. …

Yet neuroscientists have been left largely to their own devices, restrained only by standard codes of medical ethics and experimentation. This relative lack of regulation and oversight has produced a curious result. When it comes to the brain, society now regards the distinction between treatment and enhancement as essentially meaningless. Taking a drug such as Prozac when you are not clinically depressed used to be called cosmetic, or non-essential, and was therefore considered an improper use of medical technology. Now it is regarded as just about as cosmetic, and as non-essential, as birth control or orthodontics. American legislators are weighing the so-called parity issue?the argument that mental treatments deserve the same coverage in health-insurance plans as any other sort of drug. Where drugs to change personality traits were once seen as medicinal fripperies, or enhancements, they are now seen as entitlements.

General — Comments Off on Buy this mp3
24
May 02

Buy this mp3

If you want a music format that is more flexible and lacks watermarks and can be copied repeatedly then you should really encourage record labels and artists to sell their music in mp3 format by buying the Meshell mp3 from Maverick Records. My guess is depending on how well the sale goes they may make more of their records available for sale in this manner. I paid the .99$. Of course, I don’t like Meshell, but some of my friends might and it’s a good use for .99$. I think if more companies sold mp3s everyone would benefit.

Military and defense — Comments Off on Pearl Video
24
May 02

Pearl Video

As expected the Pearl video was taken off Yahoo Geocities..I’ll be putting it here or up at another Geocities site or somewhere else entirely. As a free people we must oppose all government intimidation and censorship. The Freedom of Speech is always tested by situations like this. This will have to wait until I get home tonight. I didn’t actually have a copy at home, so I had to email to my home address. There will be a link here.

Download the Pearl Execution Video Here.

Military and defense — Comments Off on Government Spooks Dropped the Ball
24
May 02

Government Spooks Dropped the Ball

From the LA Times on FBI/CIA incompetence. Funny how John Ashcroft stopped flying commercial airlines when these memos were floating around. He had warning, but didn’t think the American public should enjoy the same privilege:


    Agent Kenneth Williams suspected that a group of about eight Middle Eastern men in the Phoenix area were not merely studying at flight schools but also had shown a keen interest in airplane engineering and airport construction and security, according to sources familiar with the closed-door briefings Williams gave members of Congress this week.
  • Bush Opposes Independent September 11 Probe
  • Senate Adds ‘War on Terrorism’ to Trade Bill
      This amendment, introduced by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), has added a provision to the bill which will require that any country within this U.S./South American trade agreement, which does not support the U.S. ‘War on Terrorism’, will not receive the special trade status with the U.S. granted in the bill.

      This amounts to nothing more than economically bribing and strong arming South American countries into helping the U.S. war machine attack and dominate the planet.

      It is now DOUBLY important that the Senate version of the Andean Trade Act (H.R. 3009), must be struck down in BOTH its Republican and Democrat forms.

  • FBI Agents Charged With Extortion, Manipulating Stocks
  • US Looks to Africa for Oil, Troops to Get It No wonder people all over the world hate our country. People over there dying of aids and starvation and we’re stopping by to take some oil.
Politics — Comments Off on Right-wing Rag Run by Rev.
24
May 02

Right-wing Rag Run by Rev.

This is too funny. I forgot Rev. Sun Moon owns the conservative The Washington Times. This is kind of like how Rupert Murdoch owner of right-wing Fox News is a big supporter of the oppressive Communist Chinese government.
All I want is some consistency. Is this too much to ask?

At Tuesday night’s celebration of the Washington Times’ 20th anniversary, its founder, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, gripped a podium at the Washington Hilton and delivered an impassioned, hour-long evangelical sermon in Korean saying he established the newspaper “in response to heaven’s direction.”

During the sermon, he set the course for the Times’ next 10 years: “The Washington Times is responsible to let the American people know about God.” Later, he added: “The Washington Times will become the instrument in spreading the truth about God to the world.” …

The charges were not helped by allegations of former reporters, who say stories were changed to favor conservatives; by editors who quit, claiming church tampering; or by obscurity surrounding the paper’s finances. It has been years since many of those incidents, though, and five years since Moon’s last mass wedding in Washington, which inevitably pulled the Times into scrutiny. For the past few years, the Times has enjoyed a relatively Moon-free zone.

Obviously, objectivity is nearly impossible. The best course is to dislike both sides.

General — 1 comment
24
May 02

FBI bullies ISPs to stop Pearl video

I’ve seen the Pearl execution video. As soon as I can I’ll make it available for downloading just because I don’t think the government should have any right to stop me from viewing what I want. Certainly, as horrible and disgusting as the video is you can see worse things on rotten.com, and it does reflect the horrors of violence. I think if we were confronted with the gruesome images of warfare and terrorism more often violent military or terrorist actions would lose support. Pearl’s Pakistani executioners certainly displayed an inhuman degree of brutality and cold-bloodedness. I’m curious as to why the FBI would try to stop this video when it does everything to galavanize the public against violent Islamic extremists. From the Wired News article:


    Ted Hickman, the owner of Pro Hosters, said the FBI insisted the video be removed immediately and that agents also wanted the identity of the person who runs the ogrish.com site.

    “I said that of course I can’t release anything without a subpoena,” Hickman said. “They said they needed the content offline as soon as possible. I called back and I spoke to both him and his supervisor. Both assured me that it was illegal to post anything related to obscenity.”

    Sandra Carroll, a spokeswoman for the FBI’s Newark office, said “the local office did investigate certain aspects” of the Internet distribution of the Pearl video.

    Carroll said she was not that familiar with the investigation, and only knew that “some type of law was quoted in terms of a violation.”

    Carroll said she would investigate what charges, if any, could be filed.

    The contours of the FBI’s investigation are anything but clear. A 1996 federal obscenity law exists, but it only applies to work that “appeals to the prurient interest” — and Pearl’s video, as disturbing as it might be, is hardly sexual.

Until I can decide whether to put the video up on the website you can download it here. You should be forewarned that this is a video of a violent execution. Pearl is forced to tell the camera that he is a jew and that his parents are zionists and then he is killed and his corpse beheaded. This is powerful and brutal stuff. You might be better off not viewing it, but that decision is YOURS alone and not a decision of the government or the FBI. This is what goes on in this crazy world which has no respect for the sanctity of life or for liberty and brotherhood.

Seeking to spin the story Wired News received the following from an FBI spokesperson ie. a professional liar.


    (Editor’s Note: After this story was edited, FBI spokeswoman Sandra Carroll called Wired News to say the bureau was merely giving advice to websites hosting the Pearl video — and was not threatening prosecution. She said: “Apparently the conversation with [FBI agent] Jay Kanetkar has been similar to other conversations with other website hosts, appealing to have various of those photos removed. Apparently there is another website here in the U.S. which Jay did not name, both of which were more than happy to voluntarily remove the photos without question.”) Julia Scheeres contributed to this report.

Download the Pearl Execution Video Here.

Military and defense — 1 comment
24
May 02

Thinking about joining the military?

The NY Times had a story today about how the Pentagon recently released documents detailing their spraying of nerve agents and biological agents on US servicemen. Classy. You join up for a shitty job in the military thinking you’re doing your patriotic duty and then your own government purposely acts with disregard for your life by using you as a human guinea pig.


    Of the six tests, three used sarin, a nerve agent, or VX, a nerve gas; one used staphylococcal enterotoxin B, known as SEB, a biological toxin; one used a simulant believed to be harmless but subsequently found to be dangerous; and one used a nonpoisonous simulant.
Personal — Comments Off on Back from Las Vegas
23
May 02

Back from Las Vegas

I’m back from my trip to Vegas. Wow. Never had so much fun losing money.

Science — Comments Off on Busting copy-protection
18
May 02

Busting copy-protection

This german website details how to foil annoying audio copy-protection schemes using black markers and post-it notes. w00t!

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