Brian's Blog

Just before leaving for the beach I discovered another alternative news site that, so far, has impressed me by reporting just the kind of things that people don't want to hear, but really need to. I'm talking about Alternet.

Today they brought up the point that The Patriot Act is once again up for renewal and that likely large sections of it will become permanent. There are a multitude of points and concerns brought up in this article. All of which scare me. The Patriot Act undermines sections of the Constitution that are supposed to guarantee the protection against things such as search without probable cause, detention without probable cause and the right to a speedy trial. Additionally, they can, if they so choose, perform their searches in secret. As in, search your home or office while you are away and not tell you about it. Additionally the increased surveillance is looking a bit to Orwellian for me. For instance, they can get into Medical histories, credit reports, magazine subscriptions, membership lists, bookstore purchases, airline reservations, social service files, library records, academic transcripts, psychiatric records, charitable contributions, and genetic information. I'm still wondering how genetic info can indicate someone is a terrorist. I didn't realize terrorist tendencies were hereditary.

Really though, it does boggle the mind that this kind of a thing became law so quickly. I mean, all 342 pages if it were written, printed, distributed and read by the Congress, debated, revised, re-debated, voted on by both the House and the Senate, then signed into law by the President in something like 6 weeks after 9-11? All without a blip on the news media to tell us this we even happening? And to think that this initially temporary destruction of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights has a good shot at becoming permanent all under the noses of the mindless masses? The entire thing smells fishy to me.

Go read the Alternet article entitled One Nation, Under Watch and then make up your own mind. I personally found it educational. Don't forget to read the sidebar, it's good too.

Since I still have probable cause on my mind here's a little something from the article. But please, read the entire article to get the full context.

When the executive branch doesn't have to justify every arrest with probable cause, Kadidal says, "they can engage in sweeps based on ethnicity and religion that waste huge amounts of police resources by chasing after people we have no rational reason to suspect."

The end result? From the perspective of civil libertarians, the picture is far from pretty: a public kept in the dark; a government with unchecked and wide-ranging power over the lives of citizens; and immigrant communities on guard and less likely to provide the kinds of civilian tips that are typically at the heart of all major international anti-terrorism arrests.

I don't know that the government would do this sort of thing, but if the law isn't explicitly written to prevent them from having the ability to do it then there is a chance that they just might.

Anyone who knows me even slightly knows my views on 9-11 and the behavior of our current administration. While poking about on the subject of 9-11 I discovered a supposedly free DVD entitled Confronting the Evidence: A Call to Reopen the 9-11 Investigation. I was half thinking it was a scam to harvest E-mail addresses for spamers but filled out the form anyway. Much to my surprise I actually got the DVD in the mail! So, I watched all 3 hours of it and it sure brings up many points and unanswered questions. I've seen most of what it talks about in multiple sources already, so there wasn't a heck of a lot that was new to me. But it's nice having it all in one place.

Plus I was pleasantly surprised to see "NOT Copyrighted -- Please Copy!" written on the back! To me this alone puts some credibility to the producers. At the very least the people involved with creating this feel getting the information out into the public is more important than making a profit. So, seeing that this is supposedly free to share I took the time to rip it into avi format and share it on my favorite P2P network, Edonkey. Grab a good Edonkey client like Emule Plus (Win32) and use these links to start downloading it:

Confronting the Evidence CD1

Confronting the Evidence CD2

Painful Deceptions

To pique your interest a bit here's what's on the back of the case:

Dr. Marjorie Clarke's testimony on toxins and pollutants at Ground Zero -- which the White House said was "Safe to Breathe--" revealed the air really contained the following: Over 400,000+ pounds of lead, over 200,000+ pounds of asbestos. More than enough mercury to contaminate 2,500 city blocs. Radioactive Americium 241 from thousands of smoke detectors. Highest levels of Vanadium ever recorded. Children in nearby schools have developed serious respiratory problems. Half of those who cleaned ground zero have serious health problems. Hundreds of firefighters can no longer work. Fourteen rescue dogs have died.

This morning I saw on slashdot a story about an ipod explosion. A short conversation about this on the LVLUG IRC got me a bit fired up and critical. So, here are my critical thoughts.

The title, "Teenager's ipod goes boom", brings pictures of well, things going boom. As in an explosion. So, I thought, "Wow, I never heard of such a small device causing an explosion! I better read this." After reading it I was disappointed. Sensationalism was used to suck me in and get my interest, then once I got the real facts I realized I just waisted time on something utterly useless and non-informative. Granted, it was only 5 minutes or so but still, that's not the point.

So, lets look at this a little. Here is part of the article:

Don't put your ipod through the washing machine. And if for some reason you do, don't try to fix it with a screwdriver.

That's the advice of fire investigators probing a small explosion that burned a hole in the bed of a Melbourne teenager who tried to perform emergency surgery on his ailing mp3 player.

OK, the important part is, "...probing a small explosion that burned a hole in the bed...". When I read this sentence I pictured shards of plastic flying and a hole in the bed big enough to put your head into.

Then it goes on to say:

"It wasn't working, the young fella tried to undo it or fix it with a screwdriver and at that stage there was an explosion, or more of a pop.

"It was more smoke than fire but it did leave a burn mark on the cover."

So, it wasn't really an explosion per se, but just a pop. And now the hole in the bed is actually nothing more than a burn mark on the cover. How stupid do they think people are? Do people actually not notice this kind of contradiction within the same article?

I know this has been all over the news but supposedly Microsoft wants to make peace with the Open Source community. I'm neither an analyst nor a lawyer, but my gut reaction is, "Yeah right." I mean, Microsoft is known for its embrace, extend and extinguish tactics. They've been this way from their beginning, which is something on the order of 20 years and I don't think they will ever really change at heart. Just like any other giant company they change only when they absolutely have to change as mandated by market or law. The only willing change they seem to make is when it benefits them in some way. That's called greed. They never change because it's the right thing to do, or because it would be better for the world, community, environment, etc.

My two cents is that this could be the beginning of the embrace phase and should be viewed with much caution. But that's just me.

Update: It look like there the author of this article at yahoo news feels the same way.

Some of the things that are considered "News" by mainstream media just annoy the hell out of me. Take this quote from a recent New York Times article about the the release of Martha Stewart from prison for instance.

Ms. Stewart left the prison around 12:30 a.m. in a small convoy of vehicles, emerging from a black sport utility vehicle a half-hour later at the Greenbrier Valley Airport. Clad in jeans, high-heeled boots and a floppy gray-knit poncho over a green long-sleeved top, she briskly strode the few yards across the tarmac to a waiting private jet, accompanied by her daughter, Alexis Stewart.

Wow, the detailed description of what she was wearing at the time of her release is so important that it must be put in the news. Honestly, why don't they cover other things in such detail such as events in the Middle East, current bills being considered for law, etc. Really, I and I'm sure many others could care less about who went to prison for what and for how long they were there. Above all I don't care what cloths they had on.

Now, don't get me wrong, it's good that someone was finally punished for the business fraud that seems to be so common these days. (Worldcom, Enron, etc etc). But, once the verdict is given and the sentence served, lets move on and talk of things that are actually worth the time for the average Joe to read. Sure, this may be important to a shareholder in her company, but I think it's safe to assume that the number of shareholders is a small percentage of the total population.

I just can't wait for the deluge of useless news about the Michael Jackson trial.

For quite some time I've been turned off my the main stream media. I can't tell you the last time I sat down in front of any newscast and felt like I was informed of anything useful. That being said, I've taken to independent media as of late. Main stream media to me just seems so fake and focused more on political correctness and entertainment value versus truth. And, I guess to some degree this feeling is felt by a not insignificant portion of the rest of the population. My friend Chris mentioned to me a documentary called Orwell Rolls in his Grave which was about this exact subject. Interestingly enough it's full of interview of former journalist/media people who left the business because they didn't like the direction is was going. I found it informative, interesting, and more than a little upsetting.

While poking around on Indymedia.org I found this interview with Danny Schechter who has produced a movie called WDM: Weapons of Mass Desception which looks to be along the same lines. I haven't seen it since it just came out, is showing only in NY for now, and the DVD isn't out yet but the Flash trailer for the movie makes me think it may have promise. I'm going to keep an eye out for it. Maybe I'll get lucky and it will play locally.

Danny Schechter, who himself is supposed to be a disillusioned journalist, started mediachannel.org to be a source of uninfluenced news kind of like Democracy Now. I'll have to keep an eye on mediachannel.org when I can. I don't know how often that will be since I can't seem to find an XML feed for it. You'd think a journalist would be all over syndication feeds.

Oh, while searching for mediachannel on bloglines I found Democracy Now mentioned WMD back on December 8th with a video interview I'll have to check out.

A couple of day ago Slashdot pointed out an article entitled Freedom of What? in which High school students were questioned about The Bill of Rights. I found the results totally shocking so I thought I'd just stick my 2 cents here.

I almost fell out of my chair in disbelief when I read that one in three students said the 1st amendment went to far. Equally disheartening is that only about half of them claimed that the press should be able to publish freely without government approval.

Just so we are clear, here is the exact text of the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

What the hell is going on in schools? When did they stop teaching basic history? And when did so much of our youth decide to become little pre-communists? Even worse, when did we let them become pre-communists? I mean, this is the The Bill of Rights here. It does not go "to far" in anything. This document is what sets us apart from other countries and defines our identity as a nation. To undermine it or not care about it is ludicrous and invites disaster.

And what is this garbage about government regulating the press? When I went to school we were taught that the press is there to help balance government by keeping the people informed of what the government was up to. If the government starts controlling the press then it will hide all the things that it doesn't want the people to see. It's called self preservation and the freedom of the press is supposed to avoid that situation.

Another one to think about is that only 83% of the kids interviewed said that people should be allowed to express unpopular views. That's lower than the 97% of teachers and 99% of principals. OK, so we shouldn't be allowed to express our beliefs? Hello Big Brother. Or, what if the popular belief wrong? At one point it was believed the world was flat which it clearly is not. It took someone to express an unpopular view to eventually discover the truth.

I've learned one small thing with this subject though. I'm going to be sure to take an active part in educating my daughters about the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights. I won't let them fall to a level of apathy that causes them to take their rights for granted or make them treat the founding principles of our nation with indifference.

At BBC News they are running an article about deploying robot troops to fight against insurgents in Irag. These things are based on the same robot that is used to disarm mines and is equipped with a camera and machine gun. They aren't automatic though being remote controlled by a human which is good. Just what we need is Johny-5 going crazy and blowing the heck out of people.

The advantages mentioned over humans are the robot doesn't require food, clothing, training, motivation or a pension. Notice how keeping a living human being out of harms way is not mentioned as an advantage? My gut reaction is that the mentioned points equate to saving money. But for who? I'm sure there won't be any for us, the regular people.

On a more fun note though, it's mentioned that there are plans to replace the joystick and screen currently used on the remote control unit with a Gameboy like controller and virtual-reality goggles. Now that would be fun to play with!

Oh, I just hope this thing doesn't run Windows!

I was poking around Bloglines and came upon this article on Dean's World entitled "Red Tape May Have Killed Thousands in Tsunami" which links to this article at The New Zealand Harald that suggests that bureaucracy played a roll in the recent tsunami deaths.

A quote from the article:

"It was used to alert Pacific countries to the tsunami, even though it affected hardly any of them, and could have been used in the Indian Ocean if the threat had been from a typhoon, officials said, but it could not be used to warn about a tsunami."

What in the world is the difference between a typhoon and a tsunami that is important enough to prevent using an existing system that could help save hundreds or maybe thousands of lives? I don't care if they are both radically different natural phenomena. People killed by a typhoon are just as dead as those killed by a tsunami. I'm not sure what else to say, all I can do is shake my head in disbelief that garbage like this is even possible.

Perhaps they could have used the typhoon approved warning system if they had only filled out their Twenty-Seven B-stroke-six?