http://future-imperfect.blogspot.com/

Interesting premise - Espiocracy

Russia's Espiocrats
(((The plutocrats have been tamed, and replaced by a vast horde of spies. Much as this ominous prospect gives me pause, I have to think that maybe the siloviki are an *improvement* over the former semibankyrshina. Those moguls were a deeply unpleasant lot, and think what you may of Putin's spy petrocracy with its giant bombs, oil blackmail and hideously poisoned dissidents, he is hugely popular with the general Russian population. Ivan Sixpack loves that guy. Even Ivana Winecooler gets all hot and bothered when she sees Putin on vacation half-naked in camo pants.)))

'SILOVIKI' TAKE THE REINS IN POST-OLIGARCHY RUSSIA (Article)

Another link dump...

...I've been too lazy to offer much opinion lately.
It is what it is.
I think we're probably fucked as a whole. Economy, environment, culture.... Individually, I'm cutting costs and becoming more self-sufficient. Not in that crazy, tax resisting, survivalist kinda way.
Living leaner and greener with a hint of Ballardian post-cultural meltdown.

• Disinformation :: CIA 'Blew Chances To Spot 9/11 Threat'
• Boing Boing: Bulletproof school backpacks for frightening children
• Archives for Dave Emory - "Anti-fascist researcher Dave Emory (spelled E-M-O-R-Y) goes into all the hidden truths and details about evil men and their trade practices."
• deviantART: where ART meets application!
• Robot Hut Museum
• How voters are susceptible to politicians who can manipulate their fear of death - Boing Boing - (More Evidence -Snag)
  
• The Cacophony Society > Start-A-Lodge Cacophony Primer
• BaD ADViCe - (Alternative Porn)
  
• Political attitudes may be all in head -- chicagotribune.com - (No wonder right wingers are afraid of science -Snag)
  
• Elderly couple abandons home, moves into Travelodge - Boing Boing
• Police Find Man's Body, Guillotine In Wooded Area - Local News Story - WDIV Detroit - (Ballardian suicide -Snag)
  

Writer's rooms - Ballard

Writers' rooms: JG Ballard

More writer's rooms

Obey!

Milgram later commented, "I would say, on the basis of having observed a thousand people in the experiment and having my own intuition shaped and informed by these experiments, that if a system of death camps were set up in the United States of the sort we had seen in Nazi Germany, one would be able to find sufficient personnel for those camps in any medium-sized American town."(Article)

Or anywhere, I would suspect....


And then there's the Stanford prison experiment conducted by Philip Zimbardo:

Not even "innocent" children are immune to the effects of socialized hate:
Part 1 of Frontline's "A Class Divided"

THEY can get to anyone one of us.

Apologies...

...again for those that check here from time to time (thank you Middle Child, comments keep me writing).
It's been a busy couple of months (I do have very mundane, real world obligations).
With that, a quick thought -

It's not Global Warming...

It's Revenge!

Gaia hypothesis

Fuck this guy

The nation's top spook Michael McConnell told El Paso Times reporter Chris Roberts last week that debating the nation's spy laws in public means "some Americans are going to die" and that companies being sued for helping the government spy on Americans did help the government, an admission that Bush Administration lawyers have repeatedly told courts was a secret that could put Americans at risk. The astounding interview was published on Wednesday. (Debating Spy Laws Kills Americans and Telcos Did Spy on Americans, Spy Chief Says)

What a weaselly mother fuckin' thing to say.
First, more Americans will die crossing the street. Do you think they'll ban cars?
Secondly, there are risks with Liberty. It is not only soldiers who take those risks. Who told the American people that Liberty was all safe and cushy? It's not. We all are at risk. That is the cost. If you are not willing to take that risk then I say you are not an American. You are a gutless pig.

Link dump

I've been a bit occupied lately. It is Summer after all.
Here's a collection of articles and websites that have most stuck me in the past couple of weeks (In no particular order):

• NewsTrust - About this Story - China threatens 'nuclear option' of dollar sales

• Don’t Go There: Top 20 Taboo Topics for Presidential Candidates - 10 Zen Monkeys

• Boing Boing: Court rules US air travelers can't refuse security searches at airports

• Bush adviser: Draft worth considering - U.S. Security - MSNBC.com

• Boing Boing: Guiliani: Freedom is about authority

• How parents can battle power of McBranding - Kids & Parenting - MSNBC.com

• The War as We Saw It - New York Times

• ALEX JONES - Info Wars

• Threat Level - Wired Blogs - DHS Data Mining Program Suspended After Evading Privacy Review, Audit Finds

• Disinformation :: Private Mercenary Armies: A Looming Threat To Freedom

• Science of Magic - New York Times

• Automotive addictions and general tomfoolery

'Nuff said

A figure from my Oi! boy heyday has a couple of things to say about the WoT...

Habitué à négliger les détails

Habitué à négliger les détails et à ne regarder que les cimes, il passait de l'une à l'autre avec une promptitude surprenante et les faits qu'il découvrait se groupant d'eux-mêmes autour de leur centre étaient instantanément et automatiquement classés dans sa mémoire.*

Jules Henri Poincaré (April 29, 1854 – July 17, 1912) (IPA: [pwɛ̃kaˈʀe][1]) was one of France's greatest mathematicians and theoretical physicists, and a philosopher of science. Poincaré is often described as a polymath, and in mathematics as 'The Last Universalist', since he excelled in all fields of the discipline as it existed during his lifetime.

This is the first time I remember hearing of this fellow. It was from a Wikipedia piece about Marcel Duchamp who was interested in his work.

"The things themselves are not what science can reach..., but only the relations between things. Outside of these relations there is no knowable reality," -Poincaré

He also was essential for work on the Three Body Problem.

More at Wikipedia.

*He neglected details and jumped from idea to idea, the facts gathered from each idea would then come together and solve the problem. - Belliver, 1956

PK Dick story on NPR

"Philip K. Dick Collection Aimed at New Generation

All Things Considered, July 29, 2007 · Science fiction writer Philip K. Dick left behind more than 160 short stories and novels when he died in 1982. Many of his tales have become successful films, such as Blade Runner and Minority Report. Now, four of Dick's novels from the 1960s have been bundled into one book to give a new generation the opportunity to discover his futuristic visions.

Novelist Jonathan Lethem, the editor of the collection, speaks with Jacki Lyden."

Breaking up is hard to do

For the sake of simplification, Iraq is primarily made us of three groups who really rather not be forced to govern together. The Shiites in the south would rather associate with Persians (Iran), the Sunni with Arabs (Saudi Arabia), and the Kurds with other Kurds. The latter being divided by a border between Iraq and Turkey. Turkey's a NATO ally although, since we largely dismissed not only the UN but also NATO when invading Iraq, the alliance is iffy. Trying to keep Turkey happy is a major factor in why we can't just chop the country up and be done with it, which probably is the easiest solution for us (it'd particularly suck for the Sunni's who'd have the least amount of oil to control). Division would likely lead to a period of reprisal killings and ethnic cleansings.

Oh wait...

This reporter's a jerk, but an interesting piece nonetheless:

Bush's Turkish Gamble

By Robert D. Novak
Monday, July 30, 2007; Page A15

The morass in Iraq and deepening difficulties in Afghanistan have not deterred the Bush administration from taking on a dangerous and questionable new secret operation. High-level U.S. officials are working with their Turkish counterparts on a joint military operation to suppress Kurdish guerrillas and capture their leaders. Through covert activity, their goal is to forestall Turkey from invading Iraq. (More)

Ballardian

Reports of sabotage and intoxicated astronauts upstaged the US space agency's announcement (More)

You don't say?

The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush’s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression. (BBC Article)

Slowly, the adults retake control

"...Brown instructed his ministers that the phrase "war on terror" was no longer to be used..."

"...the Brown approach would be the approach of serious crime fighters around the world these days - community policing in which mutual trust is the cornerstone of crime prevention."
(Article)

Inmates Accused in Name Copyright Scheme

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Forget about digging a hole with a spoon to escape from prison. Four federal inmates are accused of going above and beyond that call.

The four were indicted Tuesday on allegations that they copyrighted their names, then demanded millions of dollars from prison officials for using the names without authorization. (Article)

I understand the abuse of the system part when they bullied the warden, however I don't understand why one can't copyright their own personal information as corporations do.

I consider any information about me to be copyrighted and should I find that data miners use it without my consent and make money off of its use then they're in violation of copyright. My given name and my web name/persona are as much mine as any thing the golden arches lay claim to.

Another one (Amendment) bites the dust

From Boing Boing

White House Kisses Goodbye to 5th Amendment
Todd says: The latest Executive Order from the War Criminal Administration facilitates and sanctions the taking away of property of anyone who is deemed to be "undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people". Left in those terms, it isn't too much of a stretch to envision this Administration deciding that any particularly vocal critic of the Iraq occupation is "undermining efforts" and thus a target for seizure of property or assets, Fifth Amendment be damned.

Big news indeed, and yet it has received scant little attention in the media. Shameful in every regard, but it troubles me even more that this latest criminal act has crossed a new threshold in reckless disregard for the US Constitution, and yet hardly a soul even knows about it.

Isn't this a grand war! Boy, I can't imagine anything that's been executed better. The motivations were so clear.
Can I genuflect now?
(Sorry, I own a home.)

FYI

Fifth Amendment - Rights of Persons
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

"Fear-addicts"

In history, there have been the Hyksos, the Hittites, the Visigoths, the Huns, the Golden Horde, the Crusaders, and countless other unnamed peoples who have arrived with sword and torch to bring devastation to society. Today they use bombs and AK-47s. And in the future, even if education raises up humanity from the gutters of ignorance there will still be those of the fanatic pathology. It is likely there will always be barbarians.

But that won't destroy America either.

You will.



I'm referring to the screeching fear-addicts who have raped the United States so thoroughly that they should be drawn up on charges of treason. The cowards who, unlike their grandfathers and earlier ancestors, want a nanny state to coddle them, hug them, and ultimately contain them in a little crib with bars and monitors and cameras. (Article)

A lot of venom in this piece. I like it. Word for word.

Correspondent Inference Theory

Interesting piece from Schneier, especially as it applies to our perception of terrorism(and ease of manipulation).

Correspondent Inference Theory
Two people are sitting in a room together: an experimenter and a subject. The experimenter gets up and closes the door, and the room becomes quieter. The subject is likely to believe that the experimenter's purpose in closing the door was to make the room quieter.
This is an example of correspondent inference theory. People tend to infer the motives -- and also the disposition -- of someone who performs an action based on the effects of his actions, and not on external or situational factors. If you see someone violently hitting someone else, you assume it's because he wanted to -- and is a violent person -- and not because he's play-acting. If you read about someone getting into a car accident, you assume it's because he's a bad driver and not because he was simply unlucky. And -- more importantly for this column -- if you read about a terrorist, you assume that terrorism is his ultimate goal.(Link)

Lost

I'm all lost in the supermarket
I can no longer shop happily
I came in here for that special offer
A guaranteed personality

I wasn't born so much as I fell out
Nobody seemed to notice me
We had a hedge back home in the suburbs
Over which I never could see

I heard the people who lived on the ceiling
Scream and fight most scarily
Hearing that noise was my first ever feeling
That's how it's been all around me

[Chorus]

I'm all tuned in, I see all the programmes
I save coupons from packets of tea
I've got my giant hit discoteque album
I empty a bottle and I feel a bit free

The kids in the halls and the pipes in the walls
Make me noises for company
Long distance callers make long distance calls
And the silence makes me lonely

[Chorus]

And it's not hear
It disappear
I'm all lost