What's that noise?

Why I do believe it's the sound of Americans starting to wake up....

AT&T Sued Over NSA Eavesdropping

There, there... daddy will help you go back to sleep, don't worry.

Pentagon team set to analyze nuclear attacks: report

300GB Optical Disks Tomorrow, 1.6TB in 5 Years!!

240 hours of broadcast video on a single disk?

150 million pages of data on a single disk?

63 times the capacity of DVDs?

The 300GB disks will be here by September, according to Maxell.

The new HVDs (not harmless venereal diseases, by the way) use two lasers together to store and access data in a three-dimensional holographic data layer and reference data in a more conventional CD-style data layer.

But who cares? The important thing is that they'll be on sale this year and they store masses of data. Cheap, too, apparently.

Capitol police admit mistake as protester mulls legal battle

You don't say? An American citizen:

1. whose son was killed in combat while serving in the US military and was posthumously awarded both a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart,
   
2. who has been under continuous attack simply for exercising her rights as an American, and who
   
3. was an invited guest of Representative Lynn Woolsey, a California Democrat,
   
4. was wearing a shirt that broke no laws,
   
5. posed no threat to anybody, and
   
6. broke no laws or rules whatsoever,

was ejected from the House of Representatives before Bush's State of the Union address and arrested, charged with unlawful conduct. Beauty of a catch-all, by the way.

Though Beverly Young, wife of long-time Republican Representative Bill Young of Florida, was also ejected from the House, she was not arrested.

Young's shirt read "Support the Troops."

Sheehan's shirt said, "2,245 Dead. How many more?"

The Capitol police are now admitting they made a mistake. No doody, Sherwoody.

If I didn't - cough - have every confidence that the government and police of the USA have nothing but the greatest regard for the laws of their land and the founding documents of the world's finest - cough - democracy from which those laws have been developed, I might have come to a rather disconcerting, but logical, conclusion:

Citizens who practice their rights enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America are, in fact, acting in an unlawful manner.

It would be funny if it was not all so pitifully, avoidably (some might say it's not) tragic.

Then again, I'm not being fair to DC's finest. After all, being so close to POTUS Gump must surely have a detrimental effect on anybody's aptitude. Use the Force, Duke.

I'd offer to send Sheehan a shirt that says, "The terrorists have won, already!" but so much of the USA seems allergic to the truth, I'd only get the mother of Specialist Casey Sheehan, late of the First Cavalry, in even more trouble.

Better yet, let Bush wear one of these and they can all have a big "shirt-off". Or maybe not. I dunno. You humans are beginning to irritate me.

PS. Before anybody lays into me for that awful t-shirt, let it be known that, whilst I have the greatest disdain for Bush and his fellow mafiosi, I have nothing but the utmost respect for anybody who lays their life on the line and pray for the souls of all who made the ultimate sacrifice.

Don't shoot the messenger.

What's the Big Deal with these Caricatures of Mohammed?

I don't get it!

I mean, so they portrayed the prophet as a Danish?

They stuck two Danishes on Princess Leia's head and everybody loved her!

Seriously, however, this whole story looks like rampant stupidity and racism on the parts of several European newspapers.

It is never nice to make fun of things other people hold dear and few people hold anything as dear as Muslims hold the Prophet Mohammed to their hearts.

Yeah, maybe many Muslims are what we non-Muslims might consider a bit overly-sensitive to these things. I even think their response is over the top.

Yes, one of the things we cherish ( - decreasingly, if recent government behaviour and anti-terror legislation is any indication, mind you) is our freedom to say what we want.

However, be that as it may, the definition of manners is that you don't do things that make others feel uncomfortable and there is no way on earth the people who created and published these caricatures could not have known they would be upsetting many people.

Even more importantly, our world is tainted by an awful lack of love amongst and between people and peoples, and for the rest of our universe. Making racist jokes about anybody is wrong.

To do such a thing at this time is incredibly stupid.

Now, let's just wait a few years to find out the truth about who was behind the whole thing, shall we?

Surely Dick Cheney Wouldn't Break the Law?

Would he? My word.

Coincidences can be the darndest things, can't they?

"In an abundance of caution, we advise you that we have learned that not all e-mail of the Office of Vice President and the Executive Office of the President for certain time periods in 2003 was preserved through the normal archiving process on the White House computer system."

In plain English?

At about the same time as incriminating information about the Valerie Plame leak first came to light, Dick Cheney conveniently "lost" emails that may or may not be useful to investigators.

Moron Google.

Nyxem.E - What Did I Miss?

According to this post on ars technica, the worm tempts users ...with subject lines such as "Arab sex DSC-00465.jpg," "Miss Lebanon 2006,".

Um...uh...

Maybe when I get an attachment offering me, "hot, sweaty, cheesy-fold, 65-year-old, 400kg sex godesses" I MIGHT be tempted.

Then again, the pigs might fly, too.

In any case, Nyxem.E is scheduled to delete personal data from retards' computers tomorrow, February 3. Good. Morons shouldn't be allowed to clog MY bandwidth, anyways.

It may not be poetic but it's justice. Consider it rendered.

regards,

yr lbrl srvnt

Support The Truth: DU News.

Tuesday, 31 January 2006, 2:16 pm

Support The Truth, DU News.

1. Soldiers exposed to DU, "Dustin Brim - How DU Kills U.S. Soldiers" AFP, Christopher Bollyn
   
2. People Working to expose DU, Doug Rokke, "I Implore you to act."
   
3. Statistics, Russians say 1000 metric tons of uranium used in Iraq, UK Atomic Energy states a half million will die
   
4. International Soldiarity
   
5. Ask a question, and get it answered by an expert.
   

1. Soldier Exposure: Dustin Brim by Christopher Bollyn, AFP ORMOND BEACH, Florida – An alarmingly high percentage of U.S. military personnel who have served in Iraq have been afflicted by a variety of health problems commonly known as Gulf War Syndrome. Exposure to uranium spread through the use of depleted uranium (DU) weapons is thought to be the primary cause of the high rate of chronic ailments and mortality among Gulf War vets.
   
   While initial casualties from the first U.S. invasion of Iraq were light, long-term casualties from the 1991 war ultimately exceeded 30 percent, according to Terrell E. Arnold, former Chairman of the Department of International Studies at the National War College. The long-term casualty rate from the current war in Iraq, Arnold says, is likely to be much higher.
   
   Full article at: http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/depleted_uranium_kills.html
   
   
2. People Working on DU: Doug Rokke, US Army
   
   IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED ON DEPLETED URANIUM Dr. Doug Rokke, Ph.D.
   All citizens of the world must raise a unified voice to force the leaders of those nations that have used depleted uranium munitions to recognize the immoral consequences of their actions and assume responsibility for medical care of all individuals exposed to uranium contamination and the thorough environmental remediation of all uranium contamination left as a result of combat and peacetime actions. The efforts of senior U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Army, U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, British, Canadian, Australian, and United Nations officials to prevent acknowledgment of these problems and accept responsibility must be stopped! The overt retaliation against any of us who are attempting to get these same officials to comply with their own directives must stop. We can not continue to ignore the consequences of wartime contamination that include adverse health and environmental effects. I IMPLORE YOU TO ACT!
   
   Full text found at: http://www.thepowerhour.com/news/rokke_letter.htm
   
   
3. Statistics: Russians say 1000 metric tons used in Iraq: Neil Mackay, Investigations Editor, Sunday Herald
   
   The Pentagon has admitted that 320 metric tons of DU were left on the battlefield after the first Gulf war, although Russian military experts say 1000 metric tons is a more accurate figure.
   
   In 1991, the Allies fired 944,000 DU rounds or some 2700 tons of DU tipped bombs. A UK Atomic Energy Authority report said that some 500,000 people would die before the end of this century, due to radioactive debris left in the desert.
   
   The use of DU has also led to birth defects in the children of Allied veterans and is believed to be the cause of the 'worrying number of anophthalmos cases -- babies born without eyes' in Iraq. Only one in 50 million births should be anophthalmic, yet one Baghdad hospital had eight cases in just two years. Seven of the fathers had been exposed to American DU anti-tank rounds in 1991. There have also been cases of Iraqi babies born without the crowns of their skulls, a deformity also linked to DU shelling.
   
   Full article at: http://www.sundayherald.com/32522
   
   
4. International Solidarity: http://www.idust.net -- This site is an archival reference resource for Depleted Uranium issues.
   
   Dr. Jawad Al-Ali is calling for financial help to fund the first epidemiological screening effort in Basrah, Iraq. DU has long been suspected as the cause for exploding cancer rates and birth defects in this region since it was used there in the First Gulf War.
   

Support DU News, purchase a copy of award winning Power Hour Productions/William Lewis' Beyond Treason. http://www.denniskyne.com/beyondtreason.htm

via Scoop

Interesting reading (WARNING: no war, Iraq, Bush, etc...)

Heck, these probably won't even get me in trouble with the Chinese. Again.

What Google Wants With dMarc Broadcasting

Online video from Google, Apple, others

SEO is Dead!

Reno Internet Marketing Firm Welcomes SEO Graduates

Major TV News Web Sites Now Searchable by the Spoken Word; TV Search Engine at www.tveyes.com Offers Free Search for all Content on Top Six TV News Sites

Folk Wisdom

Finally, we'll be able to buy blue roses.

Ok, this one's been in draft for ages cuz, well, I forgot about it.

But, let's face it, we could all do with blue roses, right?

Right?

It looks like a recent scientific discovery could mean blue roses for the first time ever in about a year. It's kind of cool but the real social question remains: what will it mean to give someone a bunch of blue roses?

Ireland's Role in the US Mayhem Machine

Shannon figures reveal govt's role in escalating Iraqi conflict

UN Commission on Human Rights launches new inquiry into Shannon

"May be a case" for torture express inspections at Shannon: Wille O'Dea

Concerns grow in Ireland over use of Shannon airport as US military stopover

Protest over US military flights

Ireland suffers identity crisis over neutrality

World Airways

American Trans Air

A New Kind of Care in a New Era of Casualties

I started reading this on blogrunner and just kept on going....

The Stars At Night Are Big and Bright,

Deep in the Heart of Texas.

Oh. Wait. That's not Texas. And those aren't stars.....

Former US marine claims uranium ammunition passes through Shannon

Of course, it does! How else are they gonna carry all that radioactive material ACROSS EUROPE?

So You Survived a Year of Our Finest Attempts to Get You Killed

Congratulations, here's your bonus 9,600 dollars.

I Wonder How Many Standing Ovations Bush Would Have Got...

if the sons and daughters of Representatives were in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Sheehan Removed From House Chamber Before Speech

Sheehan arrested in House gallery

Her crime? Apparently, she refused to cover up the t-shirt she was wearing, which bore an anti-war slogan.

Minutes later, Bush opened his speech by noting the death of rights-campaigner, Coretta Scott King....

Somebody should tell America's Conservatives that if you have a ticket, you're not a gatecrasher.

Top Quote from the State of the Union?

"....freedom is on the march..."

Yet more stories worth reading....

US Plans to 'Fight the Net' Revealed "A newly declassified document gives a fascinating glimpse into the US military's plans for "information operations" - from psychological operations, to attacks on hostile computer networks."

Blair in secret plot with Bush to dupe U.N. "A White House leak revealing astonishing details of how Tony Blair and George Bush lied about the Iraq war is set to cause a worldwide political storm."

By jingo, our brave boys are off to tame the Afghan. And they'll fail "Britain cannot kick the Afghanistan habit. Those snow-capped passes, exotic valleys and turbulent tribes have always posed a challenge to London’s can-do crusaders."

Apocalypse Now: Israel's Hamasteria "Only the arrival of the Anti-Christ would have received more “shock and awe” publicity throughout the world media, but especially in the United States, than the free democratic election of Hamas, a legitimate Palestinian resistance movement to free their people from the bloody boot of Israel."

George W. Bush, Zionist Double Agent, American Traitor "It was in 1990 that I first met the remarkable and brilliant Boris Lunachev. Aged, bent over slightly by repeated attacks of osteoporosis, Lunachev had asked to see me privately. He had, I understood, once been a most distinguished professor of Marxist doctrine at the prestigious Lenin Institute. He was a rising star on the Soviet political and educational scene. But in the late 70s, Lunachev was abruptly and unceremoniously ousted from his post and exiled to the West."

I gotcher doomsday scenario right here, buddy!

"Perrraps monsieur would enjoy today's specialite, hell pie! C'est fantastique! Incroyable!"

n-sphere's Recipe for Hell Pie, Not Like Mama Used to Make!

Take one cup of microbots...

Exploring Caves with Hopping Microbots, Microbots Grow Own Muscles from Cells, 'Microbots' hunt down disease, Researchers concoct self-propelled nano motor

add a dash of IPv6....

Hackers are ready for IPv6—are you?

and a sprinkling of leveraged technologies....

Skype could provide botnet controls, Security Watch: The Sky(pe) is falling

add a wee dram of automated, IP networked (and, therefore, eminently hackable and sniffable) video surveillance:

Start-up soups up surveillance cameras

mix in essence of yet more hackable, corruptable video/networking technologies/systems:

Another fix for the mobile TV capacity problem


garnish with yet more possibilities:
(add Orwell to taste: "We use these dollar bills as radar devices for humans,")

Scientists use Net game to forecast epidemics, Senator demands info on search engine subpoena

Government study: VoIP, video can be taxed


fold into "modern" societies' reliance on highly-centralised, networked communications, power, transport and security systems and serve, extra hot, on a plate of zombies,

Cybercriminal and the army of zombies, Term of the Week: Zombies and Phishing

Prepare a spicy side-dish of corporate and official ineptitude, information overload and the simple fact that the "good guys" have to get it right every time while the "bad guys" only have to get it right once and,

"Bon appetit, monsieur!"

For a bit of variation, why not take control of satellites?

Bejing Alleges Falun Gong Hijacked Chinese TV Sat During World Cup, USAF Plays Necessary Role in Space, Critical US satellites could be hacked, 'Soft walls' will keep hijacked planes at bay (remember, anything that can be done, can be undone), Bracing for guerrilla warfare in cyberspace, The NDS story as alleged by CANAL +

hijack a wee bit of Global Hawk

"...first trans-Pacific flight by a UAV..."

"ISRAELI ­ PALESTINIAN CYBER -WARFARE BROADENS" and "Information warfare (IW)--specifically the ability to intercept, read and alter enemy communications, as well as penetrate computers--is another possible role for Global Hawk"

Yet more.

If George Orwell had the slightest idea of the potential for government, corporate, terrorist and other anti-freedom, criminal tyranny we now face, what would he have said?

We face several threads and layers of threats:

1. We are already in an age that leaves authorities and organisations no choice but to automate as many of their technology tools and tasks as possible. Anything that can be programmed, scheduled, controlled or automated by one person, can have the same done by another.

2. As more and more technologies exploit IP networking and remote control more and more of those technologies can be exploited by others. More and more of those networks, networked systems, networking protocals, network devices and networking devices can be hijacked.

3. As more and more video goes digital, especially over IP networks, that video can be hijacked, snooped, redirected, altered and redistributed. The old days where criminals intercepted an analogue signal or stuck a still photo in front of a camera lens are gone. Welcome to the days of digitally-altered CCTV security footage, amigos.

"Old school" has never been more attractive. I think it is not at all far-fetched or unrealistic for people now to look forward to, envisage, expect or fear a future in which life is not totally dissimilar to that portrayed in Mad Max, A Boy and His Dog, Water World, Terminator, RoboCop, Brazil, etc...

One day, we'll likely face two choices: live in the "civilized/developed" world, where the distinctions between government, corporate and organised criminal are even harder to judge than today and who are only made abundantly clear when contrasted with petty, violent crime, "terrorist" and "criminal street gang", or one in which petty, violent crime, "terrorist" and "criminal street gang" are allowed to rule the land.

Anybody who thinks we are not already perilously close to such a state of affairs is an ignorant, blind fool.

The smart money is thin (pun not intended) on the ground, "lives" mostly in places like much of Africa, Central America and South Asia and knows that, as far as their lives are concerned, we have already reached this point.

Hasidic reggae singer Matisyahu

No, I am not making this up. Somewhere along the way, I stumbled onto this guy and have enjoyed listening to his music for a few weeks. I knew nothing about him. I finally looked him up on the web, only to find he's a Hasidic reggae singer!

"Combining the sounds of Bob Marley and Shlomo Carlebach, yet remaining wholly original," I can't imagine how he combines the sounds of Bob Marley and Shlomo Carlebach and somehow manages to remain wholly original.

Whatever next?

I can just imagine how proud his mother must be. Imagine the typical conversation...

"So, Mrs Miller, what does YOUR son do?"

"My Matthew has finally found his calling as a reggae singer...."

Another Bunch of Stories....

IRAN, BOURSE AND THE U.S. DOLLAR

In New York, a Grisly Traffic in Body Parts

General agrees: Forces are 'stretched'

Army Stretched to Breaking Point

Iran’s Nuclear Issue Becomes a Hornet’s Nest

George W. Bush, Zionist Double Agent, American Traitor

Iran's Really Big Weapon

Military assault on Iran could cost U.S. dearly

The End of 'Unalienable Rights'

Monday Morning Blooze

Here's a bunch of stories from the last few days for you to enjoy over your wholebran muffins and soy milke lattes.

U.N. to recruit army of killers for world war on the bird flu

Polls Show Many Americans are Simply Dumber Than Bush

US Army forces 50,000 soldiers into extended duty

Pentagon Can Now Fund Foreign Militaries

CIA Expands Use of Drones in Terror War

Why I Now Genuflect to Charles Krauthammer

Jamil Toubbeh: A Modern Pyrrhus

Damaged bridge threatens telecoms backbones

More Friday Goodies!

This was supposed to go up on Friday. It didn't but these are still Friday's goodies!

CNN is reporting that US federal agents have found the biggest ever cross-border tunnel used to smuggle drugs into the USA - 1200 feet long and 2 tonnes of smokables waiting to ship!

Google is weighing into the anti-spyware fray, which can only be a good thing.

Remember the Alamo!!! The LA Times is reporting, "Armed Mexican government personnel made unauthorized incursions into the United States five times in the last three months of 2005, including one incident last month in Southern California, according to confidential Department of Homeland Security records." Matches? We don need no stinkin matches!