From Industrial Workers of the World: Computer Workers Industrial Union: "e-sweatshops and digital exploitation":

The corporate-led race to the bottom, where workers across the world are invited to compete for the lowest possible pay, working conditions, and health & safety, has reached the Information Technology market. Many thought it never would, that problems that afflicted call centres and manufacturing plants would never appear in such a highly-skilled area as IT.
[...]
More and more IT work is being passed to contract workers, hired in developing nations on a fraction of the westernised wage and on temporary visas to shore up the gaps left by redundancies in the west. And when workers in India demand better pay, the jobs will be exported to another code-shop in a cheaper country faster than you can say 'fatal exception error'.
[...]
The IWW, with its hands off approach, that your Boss won't know you've joined unless you use the union, with its lack of union bureaucracy, its respect for the individual and its respect for autonomy, is exactly the kind of organisation those of us in IT need. Lets get together and show them where WE want to go today.

Hey kids, wanna buy a Traser GlowRing, Luminous Watch, or Krill Lamp, powered by radioactive tritium gas? Sorry -- if you don't live in the UK, you can't.

CNN.com - Logan Airport to look for unusual passenger behavior -- so what happens if Officer Friendly doesn't like my answers to his questions, or my tone of voice?

eff.org: California Court Cannot Lasso Texas Resident into DVD Case (November 25, 2002) -- "The California Supreme Court today ruled that a Texas resident [Matthew Pavlovich] who published [an open source DVD-descrambling software program called DeCSS] on the Internet cannot be forced to stand trial in California."

From New Scientist: GM crop mishaps unite friends and foes:

Friends and foes of the use of genetic engineering in US agriculture have united in criticising two accidents in which a food crop [soybeans] was contaminated by a [corn] crop from the previous year designed to yield pharmaceutical products.
[...]
"What if the GM corn had come up inside a corn field, instead of a soybean field?" he asks. "It could have cross pollinated and you'd have no idea where it was."

From Friends of the Earth International: MYSTERIOUS “PHARMACEUTICAL” GM CROP GOES WRONG IN THE US -- US Authorities unwilling as of today to report which Genetically Modified “Pharmaceutical” maize was found in the food chain :

Research into the company involved, Prodigene, reveals that the contamination could be one of the following :
* Aids vaccine gp120 -- a glycoprotein
* Blood-clotting agent -- Aprotinin
* Trypsin - Digestive enzyme that can be used in leather tanning or to produce insulin.
* Industrial adhesive Laccase -- an enzyme derived from a fungus

novell.com: DirXML Driver Frequently-Asked-Questions

From What Are You? Male, Merm, Herm, Ferm or Female?, by William O. Beeman, BALTIMORE MORNING SUN (BS) - Sunday March 17, 1996:

[Dr. Anne Fausto-Sterling of the Division of Biology and Medicine at Brown University] points out that there is a smooth continuum between 100 percent biologically male and 100 percent biologically female with many possibilities in between. She calls those with both testes and ovaries "herms." Those with testes and some female genitalia but no ovaries are "merms." Those with ovaries and some male genitalia but no testes are "ferms." This gives the possibility of five rough biological groupings: male, merm, herm, ferm and female.

Transhumanism.com: Interview with Rudy Rucker, September 1, 2002

From DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY: National Nuclear Security Administration: "Notice of Intent to Prepare a Supplemental Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement on Stockpile Stewardship and Management for a Modern Pit Facility" (i.e., a new nuclear bomb factory):

Since 1989, the DOE has been without the capability to produce plutonium pits (the portion of a nuclear weapon which generates the fission energy to drive modern thermonuclear weapons). The NNSA, the Department of Defense (DOD), and Congress have highlighted the lack of long-term pit production capability as a national security issue requiring timely resolution. While an interim capability is currently being established at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), classified analyses indicate that this capability will not suffice to maintain, long-term, the nuclear deterrent that is a cornerstone of U.S. national security policy.
[...]
General questions concerning this Notice of Intent for the Supplement to the Programmatic EIS on SSM for a Modern Pit Facility can be asked by calling 1-800-832-0885, ext. 65484, or by writing to: Mr. Jay Rose, Supplement to the Programmatic EIS on SSM for a Modern Pit Facility Document Manager, NA-53, Forrestal Building, U.S. Department of Energy/NNSA, 1000 Independence Avenue, SW., Washington, D.C. 20585. Comments can be submitted to Mr. Rose at the address above; or faxed to: 1-202-586-5324; or e-mailed to James.Rose@nnsa.doe.gov. Please mark envelopes, faxes, and E-mail: ``Supplement to the Programmatic EIS on SSM for a Modern Pit Facility Comments.''

Better hurry -- the public comments period ends on November 22, 2002. There's still time to email or fax. Please state that you support the "No Action Alternative" against the construction of such a facility, based on both environmental and policy considerations.

An LDAP Browser/Editor from Jarek Gawor

How NSA access was built into Windows -- Careless mistake reveals subversion of Windows by NSA, by Duncan Campbell, 04.09.1999. -- fortuitous discovery of appalling collusion between Microsoft and the US National Security Agency... or hoax?

NSA Looking Through Windows? -- definitive debunking of the story, or FUDware propaganda?

Searching on Google for ReplaceNsaKey.zip and "Andrew Fernandez cryptonym" provides further interesting reading. I *knew* I wasn't paranoid enough!

From AmerJubranDefense.org:

The Amer Jubran Defense Committee was formed in response to the illegal arrest and detention of Amer Jubran, a Palestinian human rights activist from Rhode Island. It will remain active until Amer Jubran is released from INS custody and all proceedings against him have been dropped.

Send a letter today demanding Amer Jubran's immediate release!

From New York Times (free registration required): You Are a Suspect, by William Safire.

If the Homeland Security Act is not amended before passage, here is what will happen to you:

Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend — all these transactions and communications will go into what the Defense Department describes as "a virtual, centralized grand database."

Send a fax to the White House telling Dumbya that you oppose the Pentagon's "Total Information Awareness" program.

West Marin women strip for peace

From "Before the shooting starts -- A fabricated case?", by George Hunsinger:

"History's biggest concentration camp" is what Jim Jennings, president of Conscience International, a relief organization, has called Iraq under the sanctions.

The U.S. has blocked billions of dollars of imports needed for relief and rehabilitation. According to Denis Halliday and Hans Von Sponeck, both of whom resigned in protest from the UN humanitarian program in Iraq: "The death of 5,000 to 6,000 children a month is mostly due to contaminated water, lack of medicines and malnutrition. The U.S. and the UK governments' delayed clearance of equipment and materials is responsible for this tragedy, not Baghdad."

Even if Saddam can be toppled easily (which is by no means certain), "stability" would almost certainly require a puppet regime and a prolonged, costly military occupation, not democracy for the Iraqi people. Again, is that really what Americans want?

Must read: The Lobotomy Club, by Clifford Pickover -- part of his Neoreality Series of science-fiction novels.

From 9/11: Demand to see the video footage!:

"As anyone who has been to a modern day airport has probably noticed, there are security cameras that record your every move from the minute your car drives in the parking lot to you walking up to the ticket counter - to you going through the x-ray machine to you sitting in the departure lounge and boarding your plane. The question that has been nagging me for nine months that NOBODY has asked is: Where the hell is the footage of the 17 OTHER 'hijackers'? All we were shown were 19 passport pictures of 19 'dead men.' I'd like to see the footage of ALL of the 19 'hijackers' entering the airport, checking in, going through the x-ray machines, and boarding the bloody plane. Please, do you mind, MR.BUSH?"

Thanks to Garbage House for the link.

And now, boys and girls, it's time for the story of... Binge Barbie!

New Scientist: Iraq war 'could kill 500,000'

CSO (that's Chief Security Officer) Magazine: SIMSON GARFINKEL: "Anti-Social Engineering: Lessons from reading [Kevin] Mitnick"

INS, FBI seize and detain Palestinian activist Amer Jubran

Must read: Inside the Kaisha: Demystifying Japanese Business Behavior, by Noboru Yoshimura, Philip Anderson

From Counterpunch.org: Chris Floyd: "Rummy's Plan to Provoke Terrorist Attacks":

According to a classified document prepared for Rumsfeld by his Defense Science Board, the new organization--the "Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group (P2OG)"--will carry out secret missions designed to "stimulate reactions" among terrorist groups, provoking them into committing violent acts which would then expose them to "counterattack" by U.S. forces.