ACLU Action Alert: Homeland Security Department Must Be Open and Accountable

Regarding Talisman Energy Co., war, and slavery in Sudan:

• Yale Insider: "Yale Endowment Investments, Part IV: Oil and the Civil War in Sudan"
• CBS News, June 21, 2002: "Black Gold For Blood Money In Sudan"

Tired: spaghetti code -- Wired: spaghetti content

iacboston.org: Supporters Pack Jaoudat Abouazza Immigration Hearing. Judge Orders Voluntary Exit, But Abouazza Remains in Bristol County prison.

From Boston Globe: "Palestinian [Jaoudat Abouazza] avoids deportation":

Abouazza's lawyer, Nelson Brill, said his client suffered serious harm while in INS custody at the Bristol County House of Correction. Brill said a guard punched Abouazza because he smiled. Other guards allegedly yelled ''Taliban!'' at him. And a dentist at the jail pulled four teeth out on a Sunday morning without his client's permission. Medical records that Brill received noted that Abouazza was bleeding from his mouth and in pain and that is why the dentist extracted his molars. Abouazza told Brill that was a lie. INS officials declined to comment.

Word about the alleged tooth-pulling spread via e-mails to various human rights organizations in Boston.

You know you're a Power Geek when you decide you need an Operating System Extension for your PDA and your cell phone.

From Boston IndyMedia: Canadian Citizen Jaoudat Abouazza Tortured in US Jail:

On the morning of Sunday June 16, Jaoudat Abouazza was restrained in a chair and tortured by a physician while in INS detention at the Bristol County Correctional Facility in North Dartsmouth, Massachusetts. The physician, aided by a prison guard, forcibly removed four molars from Jaoudat's mouth, ignoring his protests and breaking a tooth in the process. In great pain and still bleeding, Jaoudat was given cotton guaze and returned to his cell. One of the sockets became infected, and it was days before Jaoudat was administered antibiotics, only after the intervention of the Canadian Consulate. No report was filed diagnosing a medical necessity for the removal of his teeth, and at present, the government only admits to removing one molar.
[...]
Send letters of support to Jaoudat, as well as letters of protest to the INS at the following addresses:

SUPPORT:
Jaoudat Abouazza
Bristol County Jail and House of Correction
(North Dartmouth)
400 Faunce Corner Road
North Dartmouth, MA 02747

UNIT#: 1 West
ID#: 120541
(include unit and id #'s on lower left of envelope)

PROTEST:
USINS District Director Steven J. Farquarson
Room 1700, JFK Federal Building
Boston, MA 02203

more info:
http://boston.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=6935&group=webcast
http://atlanta.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=5880

http://www.iacboston.org/answer

From Nature Neuroscience: Degree of language lateralization determines susceptibility to unilateral brain lesions:

To determine the functional relevance of lateralization differences, we suppressed language regions using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) in healthy human subjects who differed in lateralization of language-related brain activation. Language disruption correlated with both the degree and side of lateralization. Subjects with weak lateralization (more bilaterality) were less affected by either left- or right-side TMS than were subjects with strong lateralization to one hemisphere.

From iAbolish: Slave Raid in Sudan, Dozens Missing:

Slavery in Sudan took on a new twist two weeks ago, as militia forces raided a government-run slave detention center. The Government of Sudan, which arms Arab militias to attack Black African villages in southern Sudan, established a "Peace Center" for detaining slaves who have been removed from their masters. The women and children held at this center were supposed to be returned to their villages in the South. But on Sunday, June 2, Arab militias raided the compound and re-enslaved dozens of Black Africans. Protest this atrocity by e-mailing the Sudanese Embassy and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Amnesty International USA: Prevent Torture of Musallam Shaykh Hasan in Syria:

Musallam Shaykh Hasan, a leading member of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Unity Party was arrested on 7 May in Northern Syria, by members of the political security forces. He is reportedly being held in incommunicado detention and is at risk of torture or ill-treatment.

thenation.com: ExxonMobil-Sponsored Terrorism in Indonesia

What Congress Does Not Know about Enron and 9/11

LiquiPrism -- Cellular Automata for the Generation of Rhythmic Structure, by Alan Dorin

From Weburbia > Predictions for the final unified theory of physics, by Philip Gibbs (?):

The present revolution in physics will end with the discovery of an intricate and unique mathematical structure with the power to explain all the laws of physics including a consistent theory of quantum gravity and a unified theory of all fields and particles. [...] In at least some formulations, the structure will be a finite algebraic structure in the same sense that the monster group is finite. However, it will be very much larger. [...] The finite size of the structure will imply that there is a finite limit to the amount of information which can be contained within any region of space-time, and this limit will not grow with its size. [...] Information theory and the mathematical theory of universal computers will be important in understanding how the structure relates to our universe.

From ELECTRO MAGNETIC QUANTUM GRAVITY: On the Quantum Principle of Equivalence, Quantum Inertia, and the Meaning of Mass, 1998, by Tom Ostoma and Mike Trushyk:

At tiny quantum distance scales, there exists a kind of secondary (quantized) absolute 3D space and separate absolute (quantized) time as required by CA [Cellular Automata] theory. This is represented by a rectangular array of numbers or cells; C(x,y,z). These cells change state after every new CA clock operation [delta]t. The array of numbers C(x,y,z) is called CA space, which acts like the Newtonian version of Cartesian absolute space. There also exists a separate absolute time needed to evolve the numerical state of the CA. CA space and time are not effected by any physical interactions, and are also not accessible through direct measurement. In CA space, the Plank distance (1.6 x 10^-35 meters) roughly corresponds to the minimum event distance (or cell ‘size’), and Plank time (5.4 x 10^-44 sec) to the minimum time interval possible. We show that any CA model automatically leads to a maximum speed limit for the transfer of information from place to place in CA space, and hence leads to strict physical locality of all interactions. Furthermore, we show that by adopting absolute CA space and time coordinates for the description of a pair of observers in inertial reference frames, with a relative velocity ‘v’, the Lorentz transformation follows mathematically from CA theory. Hence, Minkowski 4D flat space-time of special relativity can be seen as the direct consequence of universal Cellular Automata, as seen by inertial observers, who are not aware, and cannot measure the absolute units of CA space and time.

Ray Kurzweil's reflections on Stephen Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science"

Must read: "Into The Buzzsaw: Leading Journalists Expose the Myth of a Free Press", edited by Kristina Borjesson

Friends Committee on National Legislation > Alternatives to War Against Iraq

Independent.co.uk: Musicians found to have 'more sensitive brains'

STAR WARS ASCIIMATION from the inventor of the JET POWERED BEER COOLER

The E-Files

CNN: Microsoft warns of critical security holes in IE. See Microsoft Security Bulletin MS02-027.

SCI News: University of Pennsylvania researchers announced they have developed implantable discs capable of releasing powerful neuroleptic psychiatric drugs for five months, and potentially up to one year. And if you call it the Instrument of Obedience one more time, you're gonna wake up wearing one -- and it'll be in a place where you'll need more than a pocket knife and a bottle of whiskey to remove it!

Wired News: Have Geocache, Will Travel

ACLU Questions Military Detention of U.S. Citizen

From WashingtonPost.com: U.S. Arrests Alleged Terrorist:

"We have acted with legal authority both under the laws of war and clear Supreme Court precedent, which establishes that the military may detain a United States citizen who has joined the enemy and has entered our country to carry out hostile acts," Ashcroft said.

IndyMedia Center: Palestinian Rights Activist arrested in Boston

You haven't experienced online paranoia to the fullest until you (and your ISP) have been gently probed, prodded and scanned by http://www.anonymizer.com/snoop.cgi and http://www.leader.ru/secure/who.html. Thanks to Boris Loza at 2600.com for the links.

NYTimes.com: 'A New Kind of Science': You Know That Space-Time Thing? Never Mind

Must read:

• "The Woman Who Knew Too Much -- Alice Stewart and the Secrets of Radiation", by Gayle Greene
• "Overseers of the Poor: Surveillance, Resistance, and the Limits of Privacy", by John Gilliom

From Wired 10.06: Why Is This Man Smiling? (page 4):

While contemplating the coming evolution of robots, [Masahiro Mori] pointed out the way we can quite readily empathize with a robot that's, say, 20 percent humanlike, and even more so with a robot that's 50 percent, and even more still with a robot that's 90 percent - indeed, you can plot out a rising slope of anthropomorphizing empathy. From Mickey Mouse through Shrek, say. But somewhere beyond 95 percent, Mori hypothesizes, there's a precipitous drop-off into the Uncanny Valley. When a replicant is almost completely human, the slightest variance, the 1 percent that's not quite right, looms up enormously, rendering the entire effect somehow creepy and monstrously alien.

For example...

FBI wants to track your Web trail -- makes me want to visit their arch-rivals, cia.gov and nsa.gov, just to piss them off. On the other hand... if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Amnesty International USA:

• Help Prevent Torture of Nepalese Lawyer Tikajung Shahi
• Call on Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Palestinian Authority to end the murders of Israeli citizens
• Call on the Israeli government to prohibit the demolition of Palestinians' houses with the inhabitants still inside

United for a Fair Economy: Action Alert: Stop the Cuts in Massachusetts Social Spending

Your 401(k) contributions may be funding slavery and genocide in Sudan. Learn if you are funding slave raids.

Congress Should Investigate Ashcroft's Detentions -- yeah, and then indict the bastard.

"EXTREME SEGWAY" PROTOTYPE HITS 100 MPH!! (pay no attention to the date on the by-line).

From DRC Net: National Drug Intelligence Center Gives Partial Response to DRCNet FOIA Request on "Drug Menace" Web Sites:

For the remaining 15 web sites, NDIC FOIA officers ruled that identifying information must be withheld because such law enforcement records "could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy." But in the original NDIC report, the authors were careful to note that: "To ensure compliance with the Privacy Act, NDIC did not collect information on specific individuals." When DRCNet pointed out the contradiction to NDIC FOIA officer Pamela Nemeth, she replied only that she was told she could not release information on private individuals. "The intelligence unit upstairs compiled this list," she said, "and I would have to take it further up the chain of command if you appeal."

[...]

The following are the 37 web sites provided by NDIC. Note that some appear to be outdated or no longer functioning.

Cokehead.8m.com/custom2.html
Ecstasy.org
English.de-sjamaan.nl
Heffter.org
Hipforums.com/viewthread.php3?FID=22&TID=2502
Leda.lycaeum.org/chemicals/mdma.139.shtml
Neutron.et.tudelft.nl/cupido_eest/cup_xtc.html
Rhodium.lycaeum.org/chemistry/index.html
Shovelcat.com/ghb_info/another.html
Vitalchemistry.com
Wads.www9.50metgs.com/lsd3.html
www.a1b2c3.com/drugs/x_08.htm
www.altculture.com
www.aromadome.com/ecstasy
www.a-structures/com/dam/ghb.html
www.biopsychiatry.com/mdma.htm
www.camarklabs.com
www.elitefitness.com/ubb/Archives/Forum1/03-2001/052642.html
www.erowid.org
www.erowid.org/chemicals/lsd/lsd.shtml
www.geocities.com/Hotsprings/Spa/5932
www.ghb.org/chemistry.html
www.ghb-online.com
www.highlife.nl/archief/1999/1999-6/ghb_eng.html
www.lindesmith.org/library/ecstasy_index.html
www.lycaeum.org
www.mylifeboat.com/ghb.htm
www.nepenthes.lycaeum.org/drugs/mdma
www.powerhousesupplements.com/verve.htm
www.raversunity.com/about/about.html
www.renewtrients.com
www.roninpub.com
www.rxorg.com
www.torontonightclub.com/drugs.htm
www.totse.com/en/drugs/pscychedelics/makelsd.html
www.undergroundnews.com/Kbase/underground/hacking/makelsd.htm
www.xenopharmacophilia.com/ee/Practicalghb.html

Were the events of September 11, 2001 ALLOWED to happen?
From a response at democrats.com to David Corn's skeptical article in The Nation:

When will we hear from those responsible - Dave Frasca, the head of the FBI's Osama Bin Laden unit, the top CIA counter-officials, and the NSA's Richard Clarke, who was in charge of COORDINATING all of the counter-terrorism efforts!

My current theory is that the FBI, CIA, and NSA were each jealously guarding/tracking/handling their own set of what they *thought* were informants/moles, but who were actually feeding the Feds carefully engineered disinformation about what was being planned, and when, in order to throw them off the trail.

An early draft (1980) of the script for Blade Runner (released in 1982).