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