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Interesting links and notes on updates to my main website.
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[contact me] My Blogger Profile View my photo galleries. Listen to my radio station. LinkblogOLD Blinklist Linkblog OLD BlogMarks Linkblog Currently ReadingThis is an Ottawa blog (Ontario, Canada). Cool blogs: McWetlog wood s lot La Tribu du Verbe Wil Wheaton Darren Barefoot Lectio.ca Blogger profiles in Ottawa Hot links: delicious - popular - new Other good sites: Slashdot Wired News Mark Morford's Notes & Errata This page uses Extreme Tracker which is determining your referrer by running some JavaScript. 
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Saturday, March 22, 2003
Went with friends to Savana Cafe last night and then to The Quiet American. TQA certainly doesn't take a positive view of the American involvement in Vietnam. Friday, March 21, 2003
US - nukleer weapons
From Ask the Globe:
Is it just me or is TEN THOUSAND a bit much, considering that other than Russia, the entire rest of the world has what, like 500? Canada has zero. This actually leads to a bit of thinking which turns the whole US position on Iraq inside-out. Ok, you're a terrorist. A mean nasty no-holds-barred terrorist. Are you going to A) Try to surmount substantial barriers to smuggle WMD into the US or B) Just use the vast array of WMD already within the United States Seems to me, if the US is worried about terrorists using WMD on The Homeland, they should be frantically destroying the thousands of weapons they already have scattered across the entire country.
Iraq - checking the evidence
This is also good, via Tread lightly: Myths and misconceptions about Iraq.
President Bush - tick tick tick
What Makes W. Tick? Interview related to April 2003 story on G.W.Bush in The Atlantic. Via Tread lightly.
design - Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright: Designs for an American Landscape, 1922-1932. Via GS.
corporations
I don't see any way to link to the posting directly, but anyway, from shiny blue grasshopper: Kuchinich on Corporations. I have actually been thinking about this and if I were to go back and help Trudeau with the Constitution, I would put in an explicit clause on corporations. Something like "corporations are not persons, and have none of the rights that attach thereto". Or you can see better language and more discussion in my earlier posting. The US needs a constitutional amendment about corporations. I don't like to pick on the Southern US, it's just that it's very easy for me to draw a straight line from the beliefs required to support slavery and the beliefs the world fears. Probably, if you're within this system, it's hard to see what it looks like from outside. But in the rest of the western world, when we talk about scary religious extremists, we're as likely to be talking about American fundamentalist "christianity" as we are to be talking about radical "islam". I put both of these in quotes, as they have almost no relation to the book-based beliefs. The belief needed for slavery is that one group is superior to an entire other group, and in fact entitled to run their lives. And then you get a very nice hierarchy: God - rich white men - poor white men - white women - blacks. This is odd in a modern US which is a leader in flattening class and gender divides. But that has been actually accomplished in two ways. One is radical individualism (the individual as god). The other is radical anti-elitism, anti-aspirationalism. The world looks at the US and they see legions of men and women, fat and rich, wearing giant sweatpants and sweatshirts. Rosanne-world. Because everything is about immediate personal comfort and satisfaction. And we see this whole package of irrational, pseudo-religious, extremist beliefs. Pro- gun, war, military spending, violence, patriotism, jingoism, death penalty, abstinence, creationism, legal drug, SUV, cheap oil, consumption, large quantities bland food Anti- abortion, sex education, illegal drug, environment, tax, intellectual and yet even more dementedly, at a cultural level - vast amounts of pornography - super-sexualization of teens particularly the females - incredible levels of gun violence, particularly retributory violence on the one hand, this country that talks endless about freedom and democracy but on the other a country whose own internal democracy is weak, whose internal freedoms are perpetually being reduced, and which interferes in other countries worldwide, often resulting in those countries losing ALL of their democracy and freedom These views are dramatically different from the rest of the West. The fear is that already for decades Americans have been exporting their (to us) bizarre, contradictory, illogical, and possibly destructive belief system through their entertainment and wealth. We are now afraid they will start using their incredible military power to do the same. I guess the main point is, from inside it's probably difficult to see the contradictions and how different the "mainstream" views are from the mainstream in the rest of the western world. From the outside it... ok... um... to be blunt, it looks to us like the Americans are insane. anti-abortion plus anti-sexedu? anti-abortion plus pro-deathpenalty? christian yet pro-gun and pro-war? christian yet pro-consumption and pro-wealth? pro-legaldrug yet anti-illegaldrug? These are trivially contradictory beliefs. Holding diametrically opposed beliefs is, erm, well it's quite mad you see. They are also beliefs which are unsupported BOTH by the Bible and by science. You see, I don't mind if you believe in the Bible. As long as you believe in the actual beliefs made clear in the actual Bible. Which, I might add, can align quite well with an understanding of science. As is already accepted by every major religion in the whole entire freaking world. The closest equivalent to the set of beliefs in America is really a cult. The Cult of America. Thursday, March 20, 2003
international - Bush to visit Canada May 5, 2003
Given the current events, it should be quite the visit if Bush comes to Ottawa on May 5, 2003 as previously announced.
Considering that Liberal members of Parliament have been competing to outdo one another in anti-Bush comments, that should be quite a show. So there will be massive security to protect the Prez. Plus one would expect massive anti-war demonstrations. Yeah, that should be a great combination. How Canada can save the world: - demonstrate model of economic and social success - get the Northern US to ditch Dixie and join us
war - churches deplore
A church near my apartment is tolling its bell continuously. I don't know if it's to protest the war or what, but it certainly adds an air of gloom to an already dark and stormy night. Churches deplore war in Iraq In Reading Iraq, it says
Hmm, must be a typo. Must mean to say 46% of Americans consider themselves bomb-again Christians. If you're in the States and you want to know what it looks like from the outside, it's something like this: Steve Allen called it Dumbth. Carl Sagan worried about the return of The Demon-Haunted World. Quite simply, these both describe an America where rationality has been lost, and replaced with some combination of fantasy, delusion, and distorted religion. Where the fundamental critical thinking required to sustain a healthy democracy has been replaced with lazy habits of thought. An incurious public ill-prepared to make good choices about matters of any complexity whatsoever. It appears this has come to pass.
war - Clear Channel
Clear Channel, remember them, the vast organization that controls the bland pap erm I mean pop music on radio stations across the US, well apparently that wasn't enough. Now they are staging pro-war demonstrations. Another media story: Who's the bad guy? The one with the accent
war - just like in the previews
I had assumed that the 48 hours was from midnight Monday to midnight Wednesday. My friend said, don't be silly. It's from Bush's primetime announcement on Monday, to primetime on Wednesday. There was also the additional data point that, just as the entire content of Bush's Monday speech had been pre-announced, it had also been pre-announced that he would make a second speech, a war speech to the American public, and that as he was speaking, bombs would be dropping. In yesterday's Prepare for a whole new level of reality TV, Andrew Ryan wrote:
He was both right, and wrong. Apparently, they waited a whole 90 minutes, and then the entire event unrolled just as foretold by the television prophets. Google News top story Bush Announces Start Of War As Baghdad's Sky Lights Up says
This is awaiting publishing until the Dal systems where I host my blog are back up. Wednesday, March 19, 2003
email - spam report
According to CDT Releases New Report on Origins of Spam, the spam "arms race" is actually minimal. They say The vast majority of spam -- over 97% of it -- was delivered to addresses that had been posted on the public web. They say even the most simple of obfuscation techniques, such as myname at example.com or using HTML entities, can prevent the brainless harvesters from getting your address. So you can just do e.g. myname@example.com (where the @ is replaced by the equivalent HTML entity) or you can just use a generator to produce obfuscated addresses. Of course, then you have to trust the generator not to harvest the address you input... I'm changing my template now. My experience more or less matches this. I get a ton to bigfoot, and to chebucto. I got only like 2 to a test address I used on USENET, and not even very much to my website address, which has META tags to exclude it from legitimate search engines. I wouldn't be surprised if 90% of the spammers get their addresses directly from Google.
security - Ottawa IT links
IT Security in Ottawa. Links from CIOB - ITS - Training Information Systems Security Association, Ottawa Chapter has a good section of presentations. CIPS Ottawa Disaster Recovery Information Exchange, Ottawa Chapter There's also something called DPI - Association of Public Sector Information Professionals The Ottawa SPIN (Software Process Improvement Network) with more presentations. Today's search hit 19 Mar, Wed, 10:29:16 Altavista: what is the us congress according to Altavista, it is made up mainly of Aspartame. This is either an example of why people use Google, or a deep and profound insight. I am giddy with the responsibility of providing an authoritative definition. The US Congress is a bicameral house. (I encourage you to speak to the man on the street saying, "what do you think of bicameralism in the US Congress?") It consists of the Senate and the House of Representatives. They are... um... that is they are supposed to... erm... Ok imagine a bunch of fat rich white men past the "retirement" age of 65, except instead of retiring, they run the entire country. Well, except there are the lobbyists. Perhaps more accurately the Congress is tricameral: the House, the Senate, and the Lobbyists. The lobbyists are also rich white men, the main difference being that they are very concerned that legislation might accidentally get passed that interferes with their accumulation of wealth. Oh wait, that's not actually all that different from the other two branches of congress. Ok ok I could go on like this for quite a while but you may want to just go right on down to www.congress.gov and learn all about the exciting process yourself.
Ontario - alert levels
Hey, apparently we have alert levels too. It's just that erm, well I for one have never heard of them before. Or the entire ministry that's in charge of them. Does anyone know if you can get advance tickets for The Matrix Reloaded? I looked around the various sites but I didn't see anything. Maybe Famous Players will have a Buy Tickets for it closer to the release date?
war, international, USA - Jeffrey Simpson on Project for the New American Century
Jeffrey Simpson has been writing a fair amount lately about the Psychos for a New American Century. His latest is The difference between them and us. I'm not the greatest fan of the Pope but nevertheless when he says
That's certainly worth a listen. Link via tread lightly. I wasn't able to find that exact quote on the rather confusing Vatican site, maybe you can. On a related note, check The Chickenhawk Database. It seems enthusiasm for war is greatest in those who have avoided personal participation in military action. via Treading Lightly (but I have changed to link directly to MM's site): A Letter from Michael Moore to George W. Bush on the Eve of War. If BfC wins the Oscar for Best Documentary on Sunday, MM's acceptance speech should be sweet. Thanks to AvantGo, I read all of Scud Stud lobs a missile at Bush on my Clie without ads. However, it's worth tolerating the commercial online to read the whole thing. I have seen the black helicopters of the unwanted World Government, and guess what, they come not from the United Nations but from The Arrogant Empire This is particularly telling
On a related note, I was flicking the channels and although I only watched briefly, the gist was CNBC's Lawrence Kudlow doing a segment on "Shortchanging the Military" where he was arguing that (paraphrase) "since we are in a world war" the US needs to spend more on its military, in order to be able to (paraphrase) "deploy in the Pacific, the Atlantic, South America, the Middle East..." Tuesday, March 18, 2003
Lots of good stuff at wood s lot as usual, including www.iraqbodycount.net As well, given my previous rantage, enjoy the confluence of Smart, Iraq War, and Nazism: We've Become Such Good Little Germans. If We Care About Elizabeth Smart, Why Not the Children of Iraq? Personally, I have mostly avoided the Get Smart story. I hate all these media frenzythons. Media frenzyth0ngs, now that would be different. Um. Also I try to avoid any Nazi, Hitler etc. comparisons. I find they just come too easy. It's a lazy rhetorical device. Today's search hit is simply: MSN Search: nudity -- More Useful Everyday If you click through, you will discover the interesting new feature: eBay.ca Buy and Sell "nudity" From $1 Also it's on page: Results 421-435 of about 580091 containing "nudity". Um, you know that commercial about surfing ALL of the Internet? You don't actually have to try to do that. "Hmm, those first 400 results were interesting, I think I'll check out the remaining 570,500."
war - gettin it on
Oh, and the excitement of the upcoming war has the US once again ![[high]](http://www.whitehouse.gov/homeland/images/threat/high.jpg)
Plus an exciting new Operation: the other other Operation. Erm, I mean Operation Liberty Shield. You know, code names were a lot cooler when they were like, code names.
international - Canada and the US
As usual, good linkage from GT: The Economist on Canada and the United States.
environment - watery golf
And since 1. the war is about to start and 2. Canada isn't participating I think that's about enough warblog. In other news, thanks to the madness of Golf in the desert, the United States is the most wasteful water user in the world.
war - the March 17th speech
And as I'm sure you know, in the latest of the President's oddly flat speeches: President Says Saddam Hussein Must Leave Iraq Within 48 Hours. You know, the previous one, the press con, the way he was speaking reminded me of that drugged leader guy from that Star Trek episode.
war - Canada will not go without the UN
I didn't even know there was a news.gc.ca Anyway, buried a bit on the PM's site: Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's response to a question on Iraq, March 17, 2003
Monday, March 17, 2003
Everything you need to know about Truro, Nova Scotia:
from Unlocking the Victorian within in today's Globe.
war - 'moment of truth'
Blogger apparently took a holiday, perhaps paralyzed by last-minute warblogging. Today's best search hit is ikea bomb shelter price Our Master Bush has issued his proclamation. I particularly like this bit:
Note to Bush: United Nations does not mean the same as Nations United behind the United States. Maybe if the crazy US right-wing lunatics with their black helicopter delusions hadn't spent the last decades underfunding and undermining the UN, it would have been able to deal with Rwanda despite the (see below) US opposition to actually doing anything. Moment of truth? Fvck. Well I guess it would be nice to have ONE moment of truth in a war that has been justified by lies, fabrications and misdirection from the beginning. Globe front page reportage: Today is 'moment of truth' Plus which, as I mentioned before, isn't it for the democratically elected (erm, ok, somehow elected) US Congress to declare war, as laid out in that obscure and now rarely-consulted document, the Constitution and its related articles. Sunday, March 16, 2003
war - Rwanda misdirection
I particularly like when Bush goes on and on and on about how Saddam is Evil. Well of-fvcking-course he's evil. Whoop-de-doo. Crazed leaders all over the world are evil. Many of them got there thanks to help from their enlightened US masters. Of course, if Bush knew the teeniest, tinest shred of history he would know that this was the case. In which case, as Chretien pointed out, he would have to follow his Saddam logic and run around the world unseating evil leaders. But of course Bush has no freaking clue about anything. As far as he knows, Saddam is probably the only bad person in the entire world. I love it when he stands up there. "Don't you understand", he seems to say, "Saddam BAD. America GOOD. Bible say, GOOD defeat BAD. Must have war." How dare Bush invoke Rwanda to justify his war
war - let us pray
If yours is the kind of god who listens to prayers, I suppose we should at least give thanks that the cabal currently in power in the US didn't hold sway during the Cold War, because we'd all be living in some post-Apocalyptic radioactive world if they had. While you're at it Let us pray George Bush sees the light For those of you just joining us: following an election of dubious legitimacy, a small group of madmen has seized power in the US. Their vision for US society appears to be a theocratic, capitalist, police state. Patriotism in this vision consists in equal measures of ceaseless consumption and unquestioning obedience. The economy is a tool designed to ensure that wealth continues to flow up to the wealthy, and all other economic considerations are irrelevant. Their vision for the world is of the Triumphalist US sitting astride the globe like a colossus, using its unstoppable military might to ensure that the US consumer can keep on consuming, and that the rich continue to get richer, as is their God-given destiny. If their actions cause a planetary apocalpyse well, wasn't that what the Bible plan was anyway? Plus which, the pure rich shining white folk are all going to ascend into heaven in the coming-soon Rapture anyway. The future of America: bland rich Mormons in their giant houses busily consuming. And if the price is the occasional homeless madman who has somehow, inexplicably, become crazed by an irrational religion well, you know, enough prayers from Important People will sort that out happily and we'll all have Learned a Lesson About Life now, won't we. This is the 21st freaking century, and people's greatest aspirations are to sit in a huge house watching shows about angels on a giant TV while elsewhere in the world, lucky children quickly get to see angels for real because they are starving to death? To sit in comfy chairs listening to sweet harp music played by the army of children they have produced, while in the rest of the world, children are drafted into armies, that is, if they're not too busy being enslaved. Jesus Christ.
war - who's your baddie?
More good linkage via Tread lightly Iraq, the U.S., and threatening world peace. Follow the link through to the table. To which I would add. Ok let's see. 1. "He [Saddam] kills his own people!" Oh, and the American Civil War? The various wars and massacres against the Indians? This is not ancient history. The Civil War was 1860s. The Massacre at Wounded Knee was 1890. Plus which, hello, slavery. 2. "He [Saddam] uses biological weapons! On his own people!" Oh, and smallpox blankets for the Indians? Various medical experiments on the powerless? 3. "We [the US] have always defended democracy, unlike you other slack countries." Um yeah, like when you were late for BOTH World Wars? Like when you destablized countries all over the world because their democratic choices weren't the ones you liked? Like when you had the LAST Gulf War to protect Kingdoms such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, where rights are at the whim of the royalty? 4. "We [the US] are a beacon of democracy" Yeah, what with that amazing TWO PARTY system and all. And some tiny fraction of your population turning out for the elections. Which barely work because you use ridiculous voting machines unlike the paper-and-pencil systems used by democratic countries all over the rest of the freaking world. 5. "We [the US] are a beacon of freedom" Yeah, what with having NO PRIVACY COMMISSIONER. Or strong legislation protecting privacy rights. What with rights having been consistently, relentlessly eroded since the 1960s, when it appeared to the surprise and dismay of rich white male Americans that they might actually apply equally to everyone. and so on
war - the whale of Babylon
Tread lightly on the things of earth added to sidebar. (Although surely, speaking as a thing of the earth, it's preferable not to be trod upon atall.) Good linkage: George W. Queeg. I have to say again, it takes a certain amount of mad skill and determination to turn from a successful economy and a sudden shock that unites the entire world behind you to, within months, an economy spiralling into doom and the whole entire world against you.
war - earliest mention of March 17
The earliest I was able to find with a quick search was 06 March 2003: Troops 'told of March 17 invasion' Can anyone find earlier? I first blogged that date at 07:26 March 7 2003.
war - Bush ultimatum
Bush issues ultimatum on Iraq. President reports: "I already have March 17 blocked out for war, I don't know how to change it in Outlook". Here's a challenge: can someone find the first instance of March 17 being cited on the net as the war date? I'm sure I have been seeing it for weeks.
security - practical crypto
Ok, it's not exactly a free chapter, but it is the preface of the new book Practical Cryptography. On a somewhat related note: Wiley.com Now Offers E-Books. Wiley is a major book publisher. Don't think it will save you much (or any) money, but it may be a more convenient format for some than a huge stack of textbooks. You couldn't make this stuff up: Feds consider adding another terror risk level ... or could you ... Life imitates art I'd like one of these wise men who thought this stuff up to stand up and explain, exactly how you are supposed to behave differently when you're on yellow, orange, orange-red and red alert. I maintain my original theory of March 15, 2002. In case somehow you missed it the first few go 'rounds, here's a classic from way back in January 2001. Obsessive fans - is there anything they can't do? Farscape Fans Reinventing Television If for some reason you're not subscribed to Salon, I suppose there is a remote possibility that somehow, some way, the full text of the article might be available directly on Slashdot. I know just posting search hits is lame but honestly, with material like this, how can I pass it up 16 Mar, Sun, 07:24:59 Google: South Korean C1rcumc1s1on: Why the Heck do we do it HOME - |