Tuesday, February 28, 2006
RFID, Mind Control and the End of the World
RFID,for those who haven't yet heard, is a new product identification technology that is becoming popular with retailers in the US. Walmart, in particular, is a leader in the adoption of this technology. The intent is to replace scanned UPC barcodes with a device that can be read without laser scanning or physical contact.
RFID, which stands for Radio Frequency IDentification, consists of a small 'tags' and a transceiver unit. The mechanism is similar to that of the EZ-PASS toll collection system or the 'SpeedPay'-type devices at supermarket checkouts. The tag consists of a small amount of non-volatile computer memory, a radio-frequency transmitter, and a coil/capacitor arrangement for power. All this can be embedded in a very small package which can be secreted in product packaging or even implanted under the skin. To read the tag, the reading device sends a powerful radio signal of the correct frequency, which is picked up by the coil in the tag. This energy is used to power the tags transmitter in a brief pulse, during which the data in the tag's memory is transmitted back to the reading device. The range of the reading devices is generally on the order of an inch or two, but can be extended.
Normally, the RFID system would be used to manage inventory, simplify checkout, and prevent theft. Other applications may be limited only by the imagination. Your refrigerator and pantry could scan all the products placed in them, track dates, and prepare shopping lists for you. Your luggage could be tagged to alert you at airport baggage pick-ups. A popular industry journal where you can read about innovative uses of RFID can be found here. Here's an actual fan forum for RFID implant 'hacking'!
Legitimate security and privacy concerns over the widespread use of RFID have been voiced. Since the tags can be hidden in the products, a long-range reading device could hypothetically scan someone's home to detect the presence of those products. If placed in ID or credit cards, an array of sensors might be able to track the person's movements. The specter of hacking and spoofing haunts RFID technology as much as any electronic data system, limiting its robustness as a security device. One company has patented the technique of scanning a household's garbage to gather marketing data from the RFID tags in discarded packaging. This would probably make most people uncomfortable.
Certain criticisms of RFID, however, have taken a step or two beyond the rational. The spychips.com website appears at first glance to be concerned with privacy matters, and links to many mainstream articles, but the one of books written by the women who run the site is titled, "The Spychips Threat : Why Christians Should Resist RFID and Electronic Surveillance." Why Christians, indeed? RFID has tweaked the fertile imaginations of many, and has come to dovetail well with a couple of 'traditional' families of paranoid conspiracy theory. The first school of conspiracy centers on mind control by the CIA or other secretive government agencies. The second is related to prophesy derived from the Book of Revelations.
Government agencies such as the CIA have experimented with mind control and behavior modification. Someone who
claims to have been the unwilling subject of government mind control experiments may well be telling the truth. Many of these experiments focused on disrupting thought patterns or causing other physical and/or mental conditions that rendered the subjects unable to resist or fight. They were mainly battlefield or crowd control weapons, and did not seek to actually control a person's actions. Drugs, hypnosis, brain implants and beamed signals have all been proposed as mechanisms for this kind of control. There is no plausible evidence that the technology to actually control or 'program' a person's actions exists. This is not to say that government agencies did not attempt to do so, trying for a long shot. The likelihood that they made any progress, however, is very slim.
The paranoid schizophrenic variety of mind control favors microwaves, lasers or other beamed or broadcast methods as their vehicle of choice. This led to the popularization of the tin-foil hat as a mind-control protection device, first in earnest, then eventually as an ironic joke. This site sells EMF-shielded garments for all you paranoid protection needs, and is just full of implied pseudo-science! Proper RF practices suggest that the tin-foil hat makes a very poor Faraday cage. Implants placed in the body during surreptitious surgery are also very popular. One site has a link to a page describing a rifle that shoots 'GPS microchips' into a human subject and uses satellites to track the subject's movements. My quick assessment of that description leads me to believe that the product is not real, at least as described. A rifle that fires an RFID implant and takes a digital picture of the subject is plausible, but GPS tracking of a tiny implant is just not feasible. The smallest GPS receivers, which are quite complex, are larger than anything that could enter the body unnoticed, and is still only a <i>receiver</i>. A transmitter that could uplink to a satellite would be much bigger, and need a decent power supply. Also, a couple of the features of the sample software screenshots shout, "Bogus!"
Proponents of the existence of government mid-control seem to have close ties to the abducted-by-aliens faction of the paranoid schizophrenic crowd. Common elements among all these paranoid fantasies include the singling out of the individual for persecution and the collaboration of the majority of the population as part of the plot.
RFID fits well with these fantasies, mainly acting as a realization of the mind-control implant. The RFID implant could contain the data, or program, that would be 'injected' into the subjects mind in response to an external signal.
I found this article at the Illuminati Conspiracy Archive site, supposedly written by Rauni-Leena Luukanen-Kilde, a former Chief Medical Officer of Finland. It details a purported history of mind control and behavior modification via electronic implants. It's claims range from the plausible ("Implanted human beings can be followed anywhere.") to the wild ("Their brain functions can be remotely monitored by supercomputers...") to the insane ("...and even altered through the changing of frequencies."). Note the tell-tale use of the word 'frequency' to imply some sort of complex 'magical' characteristic of a signal, rather than simply a measure of it's speed of repetition. Another telling word usage is that of 'microchip'. Microchip is a slang term for an integrated circuit, a collection of (mainly) transistors etched into a semiconducting substrate, usually silicon. They can be fairly simple arrangements of a few logic gates, or very complex custom circuits with multiple functional modules on a single substrate, comprised of millions of transistors. However, when described by the conspiracy-minded paranoid, microchips seem to take on this quality of a wondrous 'black box' that can perform almost any function, whether or not it involves electrical signals. They also tend to include external devices such as optical sensors, displays, power supplies and radio transceivers as being part of a microchip, which normally they are not.
The article attempts to paint a picture of powerless victims whose lives are destroyed by an elite clique of 'mad scientists':
It's a cliche that recalls the clownish old TV commercials for Dianetics, where professors, scientists and psychiatrists are portrayed as evil comic-book caricatures, and only the teachings of L. Ron Hubbard can save humanity from them. Dr. Luukanen-Kilde also informs us that the mind-reading computer has already been developed:
And British Royalty is not immune:
Wow, a microchip implanted along with satellite transmitter! Where did they put the big battery that it would need? And the antenna?
This paragraph tries to preempt a common criticism:
The beliefs espoused by the article are so well-associated with paranoid schizophrenia that the author felt necessary to introduce a global conspiracy of psychiatrists.
RFID is not mentioned explicitly, but RFID fits the description of the microchip implants so well that the article almost seems prescient. On the whole, this article is too filled with wild, unsubstantiated claims, bogus technical cliches and non-sequiturs to be taken seriously by anyone with more than a slight technical background. But it could easily sound plausible to non-critical readers.
As an interesting aside, one page detailing the NSA's mind control activities had this to say about the Talking Heads:
Well, the song (from the David Byrne movie, "True Stories") did have the phrase 'thought control' in it. The rest? I dunno...
This article is an introduction to various methods of mind control, and has to be read to be believed. It attributes all mind-control and behavioral modification research to a conspiracy of Illuminati. My favorite line is, "Bear in mind, public research is generally a cover for what has already been discovered." So all visible research today is a smokescreen that lets us pretend to not know what we already know. Oh...Kay.
The article starts off with an attempted introduction to electricity and radio. It presents some accurate information and a whole lot of bullshit. The section on RFID classifies them as 'tracking implants', and the major threat seems to come from the government keeping geographic track of all citizens, all the time. But, it is related to mind control:
Since the author's seem to buy in to the New World Order conspiracy, much of the concern stems from the technology being used as a tool of societal control and repression via exhaustive data collection. The recent efforts of the US Government including the Total Information Awareness program and the NSA data-mining scandal are certainly fanning the flames of this particular brand of delusion.
Another line in the article, "They could also be used as a debit card for financial transactions, which is why they have gotten so much attention as the much feared Mark of the Beast," brings us to our second topic, RFID and the Book of Revelations.
The following quote from the Book of Revelation (or Apocalypse) is the link between Christian prophecy and RFID:
By the way, don't let that 'bondmen' thing fool you. This is just another example of the Bible's casual condoning of slavery.
By way of this prophecy, any system of identification that involves assigning IDs to people so they can participate in commerce becomes 'The Mark of the Beast'. RFID fits the bill perfectly because it can be implanted, perhaps in their right hand or forehead! I think it would be funny if the we developed a standard by which all RFID implants had to be injected into a buttock. That'll keep us safe from Satan!
This web page, part of a site that focuses on Apocalyptic prophesies of some woman in Queens, NY, just assumes that RFID implants are 'The Mark of the Beast', and lists legitimate stories about RFID implants with their Apocalyptic significance. The page states some valid (or possibly valid) information, then leaps immediately to unsupported conclusions. For example:
The assumption is that the FBI maintains a continuous, nation-spanning net of RFID readers, pinging away continuously and feeding some massive database with the locations of all vehicles, 24 hours a day. This is very unlikely to be true, especially considering the recent wave of incompetence and fraud in building data-mining systems for national security. Of course, all that incompetence could just be a cover-up...
This page begins with a (lame) numerological explanation of the 666, the 'Number of the Beast'. How do you get the name 'Jesus' to add up to 888? It then describes RFID technology, and wonders if people will be forced to get implants. How these implants were connected to '666' or The Mark of the Beast is never explained. In fact, most of the web sites dealing with the topic list news articles about implanted RFID tags with dire implications, but fail to attempt any justification of their views.
Many seem to place great significance on the fact that the Bible verse specifies the mark as being in the hand or forehead, rather than on the hand or forehead. This is probably just a case of mistranslation. I'm not sure about the original Greek of the New Testament, but in Hebrew, the word 'in' (or 'b' in Hebrew, pronounced 'buh') is often used in the sense for which we would use the word 'on' ('al' in Hebrew). An Israeli would say that you have tattoo in your arm rather than tattoo on your arm.
On the whole, I was a little disappointed at the lack of attempts to link RFID and the Mark of the Beast using anything beyond the Revelations verse. There's just this generalized belief that the antichrist will have something to do with globalism and commerce, and the people who run the world economically and politically are engaged in bringing about the conditions necessary for the arrival of the antichrist. Any institution that is multi-national in nature, especially the United Nations, must be part of the plot. RFID must be the Mark of the Beast foretold in prophesy only because it involves commerce and numeric data, was developed to international standards, and can potentially be implanted in the hand or forehead. That seems to be sufficient 'proof' for many. The Jeremiah Project presents one of the more 'rational' essays linking technology and prophecy. At least, he believes that RFID is not yet the Mark of the Beast, but may well be used as the basis of it in the future.
A Google search will dredge up way more material than you can process on RFID-related conspiracies. In the smorgasbord of conspiracy theory, RFID finds a comfortable place between the Biblical End Times group, the CIA mind-control fans and the Totalitarian UN Black Helicopter crowd. Perhaps I should check on David Icke's site to see how the Reptilians will use RFID!
RFID, which stands for Radio Frequency IDentification, consists of a small 'tags' and a transceiver unit. The mechanism is similar to that of the EZ-PASS toll collection system or the 'SpeedPay'-type devices at supermarket checkouts. The tag consists of a small amount of non-volatile computer memory, a radio-frequency transmitter, and a coil/capacitor arrangement for power. All this can be embedded in a very small package which can be secreted in product packaging or even implanted under the skin. To read the tag, the reading device sends a powerful radio signal of the correct frequency, which is picked up by the coil in the tag. This energy is used to power the tags transmitter in a brief pulse, during which the data in the tag's memory is transmitted back to the reading device. The range of the reading devices is generally on the order of an inch or two, but can be extended.
Normally, the RFID system would be used to manage inventory, simplify checkout, and prevent theft. Other applications may be limited only by the imagination. Your refrigerator and pantry could scan all the products placed in them, track dates, and prepare shopping lists for you. Your luggage could be tagged to alert you at airport baggage pick-ups. A popular industry journal where you can read about innovative uses of RFID can be found here. Here's an actual fan forum for RFID implant 'hacking'!
Legitimate security and privacy concerns over the widespread use of RFID have been voiced. Since the tags can be hidden in the products, a long-range reading device could hypothetically scan someone's home to detect the presence of those products. If placed in ID or credit cards, an array of sensors might be able to track the person's movements. The specter of hacking and spoofing haunts RFID technology as much as any electronic data system, limiting its robustness as a security device. One company has patented the technique of scanning a household's garbage to gather marketing data from the RFID tags in discarded packaging. This would probably make most people uncomfortable.
Certain criticisms of RFID, however, have taken a step or two beyond the rational. The spychips.com website appears at first glance to be concerned with privacy matters, and links to many mainstream articles, but the one of books written by the women who run the site is titled, "The Spychips Threat : Why Christians Should Resist RFID and Electronic Surveillance." Why Christians, indeed? RFID has tweaked the fertile imaginations of many, and has come to dovetail well with a couple of 'traditional' families of paranoid conspiracy theory. The first school of conspiracy centers on mind control by the CIA or other secretive government agencies. The second is related to prophesy derived from the Book of Revelations.
Government agencies such as the CIA have experimented with mind control and behavior modification. Someone who
claims to have been the unwilling subject of government mind control experiments may well be telling the truth. Many of these experiments focused on disrupting thought patterns or causing other physical and/or mental conditions that rendered the subjects unable to resist or fight. They were mainly battlefield or crowd control weapons, and did not seek to actually control a person's actions. Drugs, hypnosis, brain implants and beamed signals have all been proposed as mechanisms for this kind of control. There is no plausible evidence that the technology to actually control or 'program' a person's actions exists. This is not to say that government agencies did not attempt to do so, trying for a long shot. The likelihood that they made any progress, however, is very slim.
The paranoid schizophrenic variety of mind control favors microwaves, lasers or other beamed or broadcast methods as their vehicle of choice. This led to the popularization of the tin-foil hat as a mind-control protection device, first in earnest, then eventually as an ironic joke. This site sells EMF-shielded garments for all you paranoid protection needs, and is just full of implied pseudo-science! Proper RF practices suggest that the tin-foil hat makes a very poor Faraday cage. Implants placed in the body during surreptitious surgery are also very popular. One site has a link to a page describing a rifle that shoots 'GPS microchips' into a human subject and uses satellites to track the subject's movements. My quick assessment of that description leads me to believe that the product is not real, at least as described. A rifle that fires an RFID implant and takes a digital picture of the subject is plausible, but GPS tracking of a tiny implant is just not feasible. The smallest GPS receivers, which are quite complex, are larger than anything that could enter the body unnoticed, and is still only a <i>receiver</i>. A transmitter that could uplink to a satellite would be much bigger, and need a decent power supply. Also, a couple of the features of the sample software screenshots shout, "Bogus!"
Proponents of the existence of government mid-control seem to have close ties to the abducted-by-aliens faction of the paranoid schizophrenic crowd. Common elements among all these paranoid fantasies include the singling out of the individual for persecution and the collaboration of the majority of the population as part of the plot.
RFID fits well with these fantasies, mainly acting as a realization of the mind-control implant. The RFID implant could contain the data, or program, that would be 'injected' into the subjects mind in response to an external signal.
I found this article at the Illuminati Conspiracy Archive site, supposedly written by Rauni-Leena Luukanen-Kilde, a former Chief Medical Officer of Finland. It details a purported history of mind control and behavior modification via electronic implants. It's claims range from the plausible ("Implanted human beings can be followed anywhere.") to the wild ("Their brain functions can be remotely monitored by supercomputers...") to the insane ("...and even altered through the changing of frequencies."). Note the tell-tale use of the word 'frequency' to imply some sort of complex 'magical' characteristic of a signal, rather than simply a measure of it's speed of repetition. Another telling word usage is that of 'microchip'. Microchip is a slang term for an integrated circuit, a collection of (mainly) transistors etched into a semiconducting substrate, usually silicon. They can be fairly simple arrangements of a few logic gates, or very complex custom circuits with multiple functional modules on a single substrate, comprised of millions of transistors. However, when described by the conspiracy-minded paranoid, microchips seem to take on this quality of a wondrous 'black box' that can perform almost any function, whether or not it involves electrical signals. They also tend to include external devices such as optical sensors, displays, power supplies and radio transceivers as being part of a microchip, which normally they are not.
The article attempts to paint a picture of powerless victims whose lives are destroyed by an elite clique of 'mad scientists':
"Guinea pigs in secret experiments have included prisoners, soldiers, mental patients, handicapped children, deaf and blind people, homosexuals, single women, the elderly, school children, and any group of people considered "marginal" by the elite experimenters."
It's a cliche that recalls the clownish old TV commercials for Dianetics, where professors, scientists and psychiatrists are portrayed as evil comic-book caricatures, and only the teachings of L. Ron Hubbard can save humanity from them. Dr. Luukanen-Kilde also informs us that the mind-reading computer has already been developed:
"Every thought, reaction, hearing, and visual observation causes a certain neurological potential, spikes, and patterns in the brain and its electromagnetic fields, which can now be decoded into thoughts, pictures, and voices."
And British Royalty is not immune:
"The Washington Post reported in May 1995 that Prince William of Great Britain was implanted at the age of 12. Thus, if he were ever kidnapped, a radio wave with a specific frequency could be targeted to his microchip. The chip's signal would be routed through a satellite to the computer screen of police headquarters, where the Prince's movements could be followed. He could actually be located anywhere on the globe."
Wow, a microchip implanted along with satellite transmitter! Where did they put the big battery that it would need? And the antenna?
This paragraph tries to preempt a common criticism:
"One reason this technology has remained a state secret is the widespread prestige of the psychiatric Diagnostic Statistical Manual IV produced by the U.S. American Psychiatric Association (APA) and printed in 18 languages. Psychiatrists working for U.S. intelligence agencies no doubt participated in writing and revising this manual. This psychiatric "bible" covers up the secret development of MC technologies by labeling some of their effects as symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia."
The beliefs espoused by the article are so well-associated with paranoid schizophrenia that the author felt necessary to introduce a global conspiracy of psychiatrists.
RFID is not mentioned explicitly, but RFID fits the description of the microchip implants so well that the article almost seems prescient. On the whole, this article is too filled with wild, unsubstantiated claims, bogus technical cliches and non-sequiturs to be taken seriously by anyone with more than a slight technical background. But it could easily sound plausible to non-critical readers.
As an interesting aside, one page detailing the NSA's mind control activities had this to say about the Talking Heads:
"Talking Heads; a music group popular in the eighties, wrote a song explaining the scientific process of the NSA's brainwashing technology in a song called "Wild Wild Life". The song gave an example of what the audible transmission sounded like at the end of the song (like a tape on fast forward).
They mentioned in the song that "They (NSA) talk so fast..." and that the musical group had spent "All their time and money...Unsuccessfully trying to find a place that the NSA would not be able to harass them. The Talking Heads exposed the technology, gave an example of what it sounds like, scenarios of how the NSA might select you for the brainwashing, and the scope of the electronic surveillance system."
Well, the song (from the David Byrne movie, "True Stories") did have the phrase 'thought control' in it. The rest? I dunno...
This article is an introduction to various methods of mind control, and has to be read to be believed. It attributes all mind-control and behavioral modification research to a conspiracy of Illuminati. My favorite line is, "Bear in mind, public research is generally a cover for what has already been discovered." So all visible research today is a smokescreen that lets us pretend to not know what we already know. Oh...Kay.
The article starts off with an attempted introduction to electricity and radio. It presents some accurate information and a whole lot of bullshit. The section on RFID classifies them as 'tracking implants', and the major threat seems to come from the government keeping geographic track of all citizens, all the time. But, it is related to mind control:
"While tracking implants are not mind-control per se, they will work hand in glove with actual mind-control to make sure no one under mind-control can effectively get away. Therefore all tracking devices must be seen in the broader context as being devices to assist in the implementation of total mind-control."
Since the author's seem to buy in to the New World Order conspiracy, much of the concern stems from the technology being used as a tool of societal control and repression via exhaustive data collection. The recent efforts of the US Government including the Total Information Awareness program and the NSA data-mining scandal are certainly fanning the flames of this particular brand of delusion.
Another line in the article, "They could also be used as a debit card for financial transactions, which is why they have gotten so much attention as the much feared Mark of the Beast," brings us to our second topic, RFID and the Book of Revelations.
The following quote from the Book of Revelation (or Apocalypse) is the link between Christian prophecy and RFID:
"And he shall make all, both little and great, rich and poor, freemen and bondmen, to have a character in their right hand or on their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, but he that hath the character, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name."(Revelation Chapter 13: 16-17)
By the way, don't let that 'bondmen' thing fool you. This is just another example of the Bible's casual condoning of slavery.
By way of this prophecy, any system of identification that involves assigning IDs to people so they can participate in commerce becomes 'The Mark of the Beast'. RFID fits the bill perfectly because it can be implanted, perhaps in their right hand or forehead! I think it would be funny if the we developed a standard by which all RFID implants had to be injected into a buttock. That'll keep us safe from Satan!
This web page, part of a site that focuses on Apocalyptic prophesies of some woman in Queens, NY, just assumes that RFID implants are 'The Mark of the Beast', and lists legitimate stories about RFID implants with their Apocalyptic significance. The page states some valid (or possibly valid) information, then leaps immediately to unsupported conclusions. For example:
"Its a us federal sponsored initiative to track vehicles near certain highways feeding certain urban areas. Basically the FBI enters a rfid number into the database and then history of travel for the car pops up. The feds can also pre-enter rfids they want to watch after getting a reading off your parked car or from the Canadian-us customs border (where they already actively log the car rfids in the tires and associate them with plates) Your tires have a passive coil with 64 to 128 bit serial number emitter in them!"
The assumption is that the FBI maintains a continuous, nation-spanning net of RFID readers, pinging away continuously and feeding some massive database with the locations of all vehicles, 24 hours a day. This is very unlikely to be true, especially considering the recent wave of incompetence and fraud in building data-mining systems for national security. Of course, all that incompetence could just be a cover-up...
This page begins with a (lame) numerological explanation of the 666, the 'Number of the Beast'. How do you get the name 'Jesus' to add up to 888? It then describes RFID technology, and wonders if people will be forced to get implants. How these implants were connected to '666' or The Mark of the Beast is never explained. In fact, most of the web sites dealing with the topic list news articles about implanted RFID tags with dire implications, but fail to attempt any justification of their views.
Many seem to place great significance on the fact that the Bible verse specifies the mark as being in the hand or forehead, rather than on the hand or forehead. This is probably just a case of mistranslation. I'm not sure about the original Greek of the New Testament, but in Hebrew, the word 'in' (or 'b' in Hebrew, pronounced 'buh') is often used in the sense for which we would use the word 'on' ('al' in Hebrew). An Israeli would say that you have tattoo in your arm rather than tattoo on your arm.
On the whole, I was a little disappointed at the lack of attempts to link RFID and the Mark of the Beast using anything beyond the Revelations verse. There's just this generalized belief that the antichrist will have something to do with globalism and commerce, and the people who run the world economically and politically are engaged in bringing about the conditions necessary for the arrival of the antichrist. Any institution that is multi-national in nature, especially the United Nations, must be part of the plot. RFID must be the Mark of the Beast foretold in prophesy only because it involves commerce and numeric data, was developed to international standards, and can potentially be implanted in the hand or forehead. That seems to be sufficient 'proof' for many. The Jeremiah Project presents one of the more 'rational' essays linking technology and prophecy. At least, he believes that RFID is not yet the Mark of the Beast, but may well be used as the basis of it in the future.
A Google search will dredge up way more material than you can process on RFID-related conspiracies. In the smorgasbord of conspiracy theory, RFID finds a comfortable place between the Biblical End Times group, the CIA mind-control fans and the Totalitarian UN Black Helicopter crowd. Perhaps I should check on David Icke's site to see how the Reptilians will use RFID!
Monday, February 27, 2006
Well, At Least I Can Still Hack Junior High Math
| You Passed 8th Grade Math |
 Congratulations, you got 10/10 correct! |
Get a Mac!
Software keylogger infection on the rise:
Cyberthieves Silently Copy as You Type - New York Times
Cyberthieves Silently Copy as You Type - New York Times
Friday, February 24, 2006
Friday Random 10
| Straight Jacket | Minutemen |
| Kathleen | Pere Ubu |
| Baby Bitch | Ween |
| River Of Orchids | XTC |
| It Ain't Right | John Mayall |
| Bumble Be | Ween |
| So What's New | Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass |
| The Deportees Club | Christy Moore |
| Our House | Madness |
| Run To Me | Bee Gees |
Thursday, February 23, 2006
And They're Off...
Sectarian Fury Turns Violent in Wake of Iraq Shrine Blast - New York Times
This is civil war. We might as well start calling it one.
This is civil war. We might as well start calling it one.
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
R. Ailes Rails, Nails
after discovering a really stupid column...
Roger Ailes
(I admit this was a post title looking for an excuse)
Roger Ailes
(I admit this was a post title looking for an excuse)
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
A Trip to the Museum of Natural History
My five-year old son has really been into many things scientific lately, so we took him over to the American Museum of Natural History on Monday. He loved it. He came for the dinosaurs and rocks, but he wound up racing down the halls trying to see everything. He was a little lukewarm on the anthropological stuff, of which they have a truly amazing collection, but he still gave it some attention. I hadn't been there in maybe 25 years except for one fuzzily-remembered trip to Laserium sometime in the eighties. I did vaguely remember by Jr. High trip there, though. It seemed a lot better lit than I remember, and there was more there to see. The new Rose Space Center, which incorporates the Hayden Planetarium, was very impressive.
It's a little expensive. We paid $22 per adult and $12 for the child to see the Museum and one plaetarium show. A full ticket including the IMAX movie was about $30 for an adult. But, in general, it was worth the trip. I got a spot on the street, so we didn't have to pay $30 to park. Ha!
Some pics:
Some dinosaur skeleton
A Mayan calendar
Where to Next?
The Rose Space Center (Planetarium Globe to the right)
Some mineral
It's a little expensive. We paid $22 per adult and $12 for the child to see the Museum and one plaetarium show. A full ticket including the IMAX movie was about $30 for an adult. But, in general, it was worth the trip. I got a spot on the street, so we didn't have to pay $30 to park. Ha!
Some pics:
Some dinosaur skeleton
A Mayan calendar
Where to Next?
The Rose Space Center (Planetarium Globe to the right)
Some mineral
Friday, February 17, 2006
Fire Richard Cohen Now!
for crimes against intelligence and punditary malpractice.
Richard 'Barbie' Cohen: Math is Hard!
Stack Trace:
Pharyngula
Atrios
Richard 'Barbie' Cohen: Math is Hard!
Stack Trace:
Pharyngula
Atrios
The Cult of Hydration
Why do all these people walk around New York with huge bottles of water slung in their backpacks? Some of these human camels have a bottle on each side (for balance?). Is Manhattan soon scheduled to become a desert because of global warming?
Might I add that it's very hard to find public restrooms here?
Might I add that it's very hard to find public restrooms here?
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Bush Took Abramoff Money
Lots of it.
Did Mahathir pay $1.6m to meet Bush? - World - theage.com.au:
Bush participated in Abrmaoff's dirty Malaysian Rehab scheme?
But Al Gore took money from those Buddhist Monks!! It's all Clinton's fault! Aaaaaaah!
Did Mahathir pay $1.6m to meet Bush? - World - theage.com.au:
"The Malaysian payments were made to the American International Centre, a bogus 'international think tank' that an Abramoff partner, Michael Scanlon, set up at a Delaware beach house.
By routing the money in that way, Abramoff avoided having to register with the Justice Department as an agent of a foreign government.
After Dr Mahathir's White House meeting, a former associate said, Abramoff was invited to a dinner honouring the Prime Minister at the Malaysian embassy."
Bush participated in Abrmaoff's dirty Malaysian Rehab scheme?
But Al Gore took money from those Buddhist Monks!! It's all Clinton's fault! Aaaaaaah!
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Stonewall Update
Karl Rove was Abramoff's main Whitehouse contact:
AP Wire | 02/14/2006 | Abramoff said to claim close ties to Rove
The Ralston connection should have made this evident.
via AmericaBlog
AP Wire | 02/14/2006 | Abramoff said to claim close ties to Rove
Abramoff was a $100,000 fundraiser for Bush and lobbying records obtained by the AP show his lobbying team logged nearly 200 meetings with the administration during its first 10 months in office on behalf of one of his clients, the Northern Mariana Islands.
The contacts between Abramoff's team and the administration included meetings with Attorney General John Ashcroft and policy advisers to Vice President Dick Cheney, the AP reported last year.
Abramoff's former assistant, Susan Ralston, went to work for Rove in 2001. Abramoff's legal team declined comment Monday night.
According to one of the three former associates, frequently Abramoff's cell phone would ring and the lobbyist would tell the associate that the White House was calling. To prove that he wasn't making up what he was telling the associate, Abramoff occasionally would hold up the phone so that the associate could see the incoming call was indeed a White House phone number.
The Ralston connection should have made this evident.
via AmericaBlog
Sunday, February 12, 2006
Friday, February 10, 2006
Now With Less Bushit!
Bush, thinking he's speaking only to his Repub 'friends', peels away one thin layer of the bullshit onion:
Bush Reveals Rationale Behind Surveillance - New York Times
via Dependable (as always) Renegade
Bush Reveals Rationale Behind Surveillance - New York Times
via Dependable (as always) Renegade
Black Monk Time
| A Town Called Big Nothing (Really Big Nothing) | The MacManus Gang |
| I Know | Bob Marley And The Wailers |
| Cuckoo | Monks |
| Dumb All Over | Frank Zappa |
| I Can't Help Myself | John Fogerty |
| Got To Set Her Free | Big Audio Dynamite |
| I Knew The Bride (When She Used To Rock And Roll) | Nick Lowe's Last Chicken In The Shop |
| I'm A Hog For You | Clifton Chenier |
| Zigzagging Through Ghostland | The Radiators |
| Cold, Cold Heart | Hank Williams |
BUY MONKS!
Causal Friday
It's causal Friday at work today, where we review the weeks business and try to sort out cause from effect.
Sorry.
Sorry.
Bush Says...
- Google News
All the headlines on the alleged 2002 terror attack (at least when I looked at it) start with:
Bush Says...
Bush Details...
Bush Tells...
They specifically pin it on Bush's credibility, which is no longer taken for granted.
The NY Daily News had my favorite headline of the bunch:
"W claims evil plot, takes heat"
All the headlines on the alleged 2002 terror attack (at least when I looked at it) start with:
Bush Says...
Bush Details...
Bush Tells...
They specifically pin it on Bush's credibility, which is no longer taken for granted.
The NY Daily News had my favorite headline of the bunch:
"W claims evil plot, takes heat"
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Sylvia Browne Fucks Up on Live Radio
via JREF:
TV Psychic Misses Mark on Miners:
When she thought the miners had all survived:
When she heard the miners were all dead:
Then a clumsy attempt at recovery:
It's priceless to see a bullshit artist like Browne left high and dry by her own incompetence; exposed as an obvious clown. Fortunately for her, her audience is the type that's willing to ignore these glimpses of reality behind the curtain.
ps - Best wishes to James Randi, who is recovering from bypass surgery. Get well soon, Amazing, the world needs you!
TV Psychic Misses Mark on Miners:
When she thought the miners had all survived:
"Noory: 'Had you been on the program today, would [you] have felt if — because they heard no sound — that this was a very gloomy moment — and that they might have all died?'
Browne: 'No. I knew they were going to be found. I hate people that say something after the fact. It’s just like I knew when the pope was dead. Thank God I was on Montel’s show. I said, according to the time, it was 9-something and whatever Rome time was. And I said he was gone, and he was.'"
When she heard the miners were all dead:
Noory soon announced that there were new reports that all but one of the miners was dead.
Browne — who was still in the studio taking questions from listeners — had to say something. Now she was just riffing: "I don’t think there’s anybody alive, maybe one. How crazy for them to report that they were alive when they weren’t!" Then she added: "I just don’t think they are alive." She cleared her throat, and there was a deafening pause.
Noory went to a commercial.
Then a clumsy attempt at recovery:
Returning from news and commercials for their last segment together, Noory tried to dig Browne out of her hole with a softball question. He asked: "With your accuracy rate so high ...."
Browne answered by injecting a non sequitur. Her earlier proclamation that she’d always known the miners were alive had obviously been worrying her.
She blurted: "I didn’t believe that they were alive."
Noory: "What’s that, the miners?"
Browne: "Yeah, I didn’t think — and see, I’ve been on the show with you, but I don’t think there’s any that are going to make it."
Noory: "They say there are 12 gone. I think we threw you a curveball, we were telling you after the fact."
Browne: "Yeah, no, I did believe that they were gone."
It's priceless to see a bullshit artist like Browne left high and dry by her own incompetence; exposed as an obvious clown. Fortunately for her, her audience is the type that's willing to ignore these glimpses of reality behind the curtain.
ps - Best wishes to James Randi, who is recovering from bypass surgery. Get well soon, Amazing, the world needs you!
Internet Archive: Prelinger Archives
Rick Prelinger's Video Archives has been made available for download. It includes mostly stuff from the 1940s to the 1970s, including 'social engineering' shorts on hygiene and dating (like they goof on in MST3K), the infamous safety films of the 'Blood Runs Red on the Highway' sort, documentaries, TV commercials, government educational films and propaganda, Duck and Cover, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge disaster, the Hindenburg explosion and lots more. Check it out, it's Jam Handy!
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Bird Flu confirmed in Iraq
The death of a 10 year old girl in Northern Iraq has been confirmed as being caused by the H5N1 virus. Her uncle's death was also likey bird flu, and several others in the Sulaimaniya area are suspected of having it. It probably spread from Turkey via migratory birds and conditions in Iraq seem to be favorable for spreading the virus. A total of 12 suspected cases are being treated across Iraq.
In Amarah, 180 miles south of Baghdad, a 14 year old pigeon seller is thought to have died from the virus. This apparent spreading of the disease to southern Iraq is cause for concern, considering the sorry state Iraq's infrastructure. In large areas of Iraq, security concerns will make fighting the spread of bird flu virtually impossible.
The real fear is that the virus will mutate to a form that can be transmitted from one human to another directly. Right now, it can only be caught through contact with infected birds.
Articles here and here.
In Amarah, 180 miles south of Baghdad, a 14 year old pigeon seller is thought to have died from the virus. This apparent spreading of the disease to southern Iraq is cause for concern, considering the sorry state Iraq's infrastructure. In large areas of Iraq, security concerns will make fighting the spread of bird flu virtually impossible.
The real fear is that the virus will mutate to a form that can be transmitted from one human to another directly. Right now, it can only be caught through contact with infected birds.
Articles here and here.
Theocrat Watch
Radical Christian Reconstructionists launch a campaign to convert conservative evangelical churches.
SPLCenter.org: Casting Stones
A lovely quote from Mark Rushdoony, son of deceased, racist Holocaust denier R.J. Rushdoony:
and this:
Is his vision incompatible with democracy? You bet! Rushdoony inherited the presidency of The Chalcedon Foundation, which seeks to replace our American system of government with an unapologetic theocracy based on their 'literal' interpretation of parts of the Bible. They support the mass execution of homosexuals and adulteresses (and what about adulterers?), in addition to sorcerers, wizards and pagans. Well, at least Sylvia Browne will get the axe.
Here's my favorite quote:
These are dangerous, megalomaniacal, deluded people who should not be ignored.
SPLCenter.org: Casting Stones
A lovely quote from Mark Rushdoony, son of deceased, racist Holocaust denier R.J. Rushdoony:
"We are authorized by God to challenge all that is not godly!" Rushdoony thundered. "God is angry with the wicked every day, and the sins of the wicked deserve the infliction of God's wrath in this life as well as the life hereafter!"
and this:
"To oppose us is to attack God's law," Mark Rushdoony testified to nearly 200 followers from four states, "and to attack God's law is to attack God himself!"
Is his vision incompatible with democracy? You bet! Rushdoony inherited the presidency of The Chalcedon Foundation, which seeks to replace our American system of government with an unapologetic theocracy based on their 'literal' interpretation of parts of the Bible. They support the mass execution of homosexuals and adulteresses (and what about adulterers?), in addition to sorcerers, wizards and pagans. Well, at least Sylvia Browne will get the axe.
Here's my favorite quote:
"We must base our laws on faith, not reason,"Yeah, who would want laws based on reason. These guys are so out there that they consider most fundamentalist evangelical churches to be far too liberal.
These are dangerous, megalomaniacal, deluded people who should not be ignored.
Theocrat Watch
British muslim cleric Masri has been sentenced to prison for inflammatory speech:
Cleric Convicted of Stirring Hate
He would not have been convicted here:
Although I deplore what this guy does and says, I can't agree with a law that jails people for speech that isn't directly linked to a serious crime. Speech can be ulgy. Suppression of free speech is always uglier.
Cleric Convicted of Stirring Hate
He would not have been convicted here:
"The charges against Mr. Masri made no reference to specific acts of violence committed by specific people. By contrast, in the United States, only speech that directly calls for imminent violence can be punished. In practice, that standard protects essentially everything said from a pulpit, at a rally, on the radio and in a newspaper, no matter how ugly."
Although I deplore what this guy does and says, I can't agree with a law that jails people for speech that isn't directly linked to a serious crime. Speech can be ulgy. Suppression of free speech is always uglier.
Tense and Nervous?
Can't relax?
I figure the most nervous group of people in the world right now is the Danish contingent of 530 troops who are in Iraq right now as part of the Coalition of the Syncophantic.
I figure the most nervous group of people in the world right now is the Danish contingent of 530 troops who are in Iraq right now as part of the Coalition of the Syncophantic.
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Conspiracy Update - The Abramoff Connection
Abramoff's grand aims came early - The Boston Globe:
via First Draft
"In 1981, a newly elected president was about to shift the nation rightward, and a 22-year-old Brandeis graduate named Jack Abramoff -- savoring his own victory as the newly elected chairman of the College Republicans -- was hatching plans to transform the nation's young people into stalwart Reaganites.
It was the start of a career that would roil Washington 25 years later, and a phase of Abramoff's life that provided signposts toward his later demise.
''Our job,' Abramoff wrote, ''is to remove liberals ''from power permanently -- [from] student newspaper and radio stations, student governments, and academia.
''We are replacing these leftists with committed conservatives.'"
via First Draft
Monday, February 06, 2006
You don't need to see our identification
These are not the droids you're looking for.
Scottie tries Jedi mind tricks on the press corps:
via Talking Points Memo, an actual timely Whitehouse / Abramoff Stonewall update
Scottie tries Jedi mind tricks on the press corps:
Go ahead, Victoria.
Q Scott, there have been various reports that photographs of the President with Jack Abramoff have disappeared from the archives of photographic studios, at least one. Could you tell us whether the White House or anyone working at the White House's behest has taken any steps to remove any photographs that the President --
MR. McCLELLAN: I don't know anything about that. I think that I saw some story where the very company that you're mentioning said otherwise. So I think you ought to see what they said.
Q They acknowledged that the photographs had disappeared from their work site.
MR. McCLELLAN: I think they said something other than that.
via Talking Points Memo, an actual timely Whitehouse / Abramoff Stonewall update
The Whitehouse / Abramoff Stonewall Continues...
Scottie "Any more and she'll blow, Captain" McClellan:
(Update: This briefing is a week old!)
Q And I'm glad that you did call on me, Scott. Thank you very much.
A couple of Republicans over the weekend, including Senator John Thune, suggested that the White House do a public data dump on everything you've got related to Jack Abramoff, just to clear the air. Your response on that?
MR. McCLELLAN: My response is that it's important for anyone that was engaged in this wrongdoing to be held to account. Mr. Abramoff is being held to account by the Department of Justice. The career team at the Department of Justice within the public integrity unit is continuing to move forward on the investigation, and they should pursue it to the fullest extent and hold all those who engaged in wrongdoing to account. Beyond that, I think we've made our views very well known in terms of this matter. And nothing has changed.
(Update: This briefing is a week old!)
America's Most Dangerous Enemy
Several prominent pundits have recently identified a newly nuclear-armed Iran as the greatest threat to America. This is pretty obviously ludicrous. A terrorist organization such as Al Qaeda is far more dangerous because we lack the deterrent ability of retaliation in force that we would have to use against a state. The argument that Iran would supply nuclear devices or material to terrorists is as weak as the same argument made previously about Iraq when some of these same schmucks thought it had an active nuclear program. If arming terrorists with nukes is your pet fear (and it's a good one), it's Russia and the former Soviet countries that should be fueling your nightmares. Ideology may loom large in Osama's rhetoric, but it's cash and the mafia that are going to deliver the goods.
If I were asked to identify the greatest threat to America today, I would point a finger at Republicans. More specifically, the long-term Republican plan to use extra-political means to corrupt our two-party democracy into a one-party 'managed democracy'. The Republican Democracy will fast-track corporate control of legislation, use various techniques to ensure success at the ballot-box, and enshrine the triumph of demagoguery over science and reality. To distract from its domestic and international failures, it will pander to the worst elements of our society, identifying scapegoats to redirect public ire. And we all know where that road leads. They will use the instruments of mass media to manipulate public opinion without restriction. Karl Rove personifies this plan, which involves setting half the country against the other half, while ensuring that their 'half' is just slightly larger. The entrenched and enriched will be free to further entrench and enrich themselves. The poor and middle class will slip slowly into abject peonage, like the frog in slowly heated water that doesn't realize it's being boiled to death.
The geniuses who devised this plan probably really believed that America would be best run as a model corporation. They forgot that capitalism leaves no room for ethics. Capitalism knows no bounds of propriety or compassion. The two rules are:
1 - Maximize profit
2 - Don't get caught
How these rules could be the basis of a living government is not clear to me. Yet the corporatization of the American government is trumpeted proudly as an accomplishment. It's more efficient! The grown-ups are in charge again! He's the CEO President! Top-down management! Stay on message! Keep the focus! Guys, capitalism as an economic system has many self-regulating and buffering qualities that contribute to a stable economy. But it is not perfect! [/heresy] The invisible hand IS NOT REALLY GOD'S HAND, folks! It's just another fucking complex natural system, with all the imperfection (from our viewpoint) that implies.
But where is the payoff for our acceptance of the corporate democracy? We get Iraq, Enron, Katrina, bursting bubbles and burst budgets laden with pork fat, Jack Abramoff and Tom Delay. When does the good part start? It must be those darned obstructionist Democrats who, while completely powerless and ineffectual (all part of the plan!), can still hold somehow hold back the Republican Juggernaut of Goodness.
Rove is Marketing. Bush is the figurehead CEO. Rumsfeld is the ruthless ladder-climber. Condi and Colin are the affirmative action hires. A typical corporate power structure, beset by incompetent ass-kissers and yes-men, isolated from the real world, collectively clueless, and sure, by god, that they're right and they know what's best for everyone else, even if they don't yet know it themselves. Unfortunately, this administration is the ideal one for the Republican plan. Even scarier than the Bush administration's incompetence is the notion that most of their actions are actually proceeding according to plan (close enough for government work, anyway). "Iraq? We meant to do that!"
So, when you want to identify the biggest threat to America, remember that most civilizations rot from within. No external enemy has the capacity to destroy America greater than our capacity to destroy ourselves.
If I were asked to identify the greatest threat to America today, I would point a finger at Republicans. More specifically, the long-term Republican plan to use extra-political means to corrupt our two-party democracy into a one-party 'managed democracy'. The Republican Democracy will fast-track corporate control of legislation, use various techniques to ensure success at the ballot-box, and enshrine the triumph of demagoguery over science and reality. To distract from its domestic and international failures, it will pander to the worst elements of our society, identifying scapegoats to redirect public ire. And we all know where that road leads. They will use the instruments of mass media to manipulate public opinion without restriction. Karl Rove personifies this plan, which involves setting half the country against the other half, while ensuring that their 'half' is just slightly larger. The entrenched and enriched will be free to further entrench and enrich themselves. The poor and middle class will slip slowly into abject peonage, like the frog in slowly heated water that doesn't realize it's being boiled to death.
The geniuses who devised this plan probably really believed that America would be best run as a model corporation. They forgot that capitalism leaves no room for ethics. Capitalism knows no bounds of propriety or compassion. The two rules are:
1 - Maximize profit
2 - Don't get caught
How these rules could be the basis of a living government is not clear to me. Yet the corporatization of the American government is trumpeted proudly as an accomplishment. It's more efficient! The grown-ups are in charge again! He's the CEO President! Top-down management! Stay on message! Keep the focus! Guys, capitalism as an economic system has many self-regulating and buffering qualities that contribute to a stable economy. But it is not perfect! [/heresy] The invisible hand IS NOT REALLY GOD'S HAND, folks! It's just another fucking complex natural system, with all the imperfection (from our viewpoint) that implies.
But where is the payoff for our acceptance of the corporate democracy? We get Iraq, Enron, Katrina, bursting bubbles and burst budgets laden with pork fat, Jack Abramoff and Tom Delay. When does the good part start? It must be those darned obstructionist Democrats who, while completely powerless and ineffectual (all part of the plan!), can still hold somehow hold back the Republican Juggernaut of Goodness.
Rove is Marketing. Bush is the figurehead CEO. Rumsfeld is the ruthless ladder-climber. Condi and Colin are the affirmative action hires. A typical corporate power structure, beset by incompetent ass-kissers and yes-men, isolated from the real world, collectively clueless, and sure, by god, that they're right and they know what's best for everyone else, even if they don't yet know it themselves. Unfortunately, this administration is the ideal one for the Republican plan. Even scarier than the Bush administration's incompetence is the notion that most of their actions are actually proceeding according to plan (close enough for government work, anyway). "Iraq? We meant to do that!"
So, when you want to identify the biggest threat to America, remember that most civilizations rot from within. No external enemy has the capacity to destroy America greater than our capacity to destroy ourselves.
Stellarium Astronomy Software
A really nifty full-screen skywatching program. Smooth, pretty and free (GPL).
Friday, February 03, 2006
It's Friday!
| Sexy Sadie | The Beatles |
| Double Oh-Oh | George Clinton |
| How Can You Mend A Broken Heart | Bee Gees |
| Wayne's Pet Youngin' | Ween |
| One Thing Leads To Another | The Fixx |
| Survival | Joe Jackson |
| Fish Out Of Water | Tears For Fears |
| Huboon Stomp | Devo |
| True Story | Bobby Bare |
| Uncle John's Band | Grateful Dead |
NYPD vs. NYPD
via AmericaBlog:
NYPD cops get treated like average citizens, find they don't like it one bit, and sue the city. Boo fuckin' hoo.
(reggie may be req'd for NYT article)
NYPD cops get treated like average citizens, find they don't like it one bit, and sue the city. Boo fuckin' hoo.
(reggie may be req'd for NYT article)
Holy Boehner!
And he shall lead the Republicans to a bright and honest future, free of corruption and greed. Or not.
Boehner. Heh heh heh.
Thanks to Rising
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Citizens Fight Back
against the religious repression of evil Falwell minions.
The Wall of Separation: Christmas Calumny: School District Challenges Liberty Counsel’s Bogus ‘Christmas War’
The Wall of Separation: Christmas Calumny: School District Challenges Liberty Counsel’s Bogus ‘Christmas War’
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
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