M'aidez

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All anyone can talk about today are those pictures... those terrible pictures. There is so much rage and frustration.

Three Discharged

Ignorance and Authority

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About the abused prisoners.

This excerpt from the BBC News shows what is wrong with the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

One of the suspended soldiers, Staff Sergeant Chip Frederick, said
the way the army ran the prison had led to the abuse.

"We had no support, no training whatsoever. And I kept asking my chain
of command for certain things... Like rules and regulations," he told
CBS. "It just wasn't happening."

He said he did not see a copy of the Geneva Convention rules for handling
prisoners of war until after he was charged.

The Issue is education. Ignorance is not an excuse.

I realize that I may be considered Un-Patriotic for posting this reference. However the Allegations Made against the American Soldiers have lead to charges against them. I am aware that 'all is fair in love and war,' but I also believe that we must follow the Rules of the Geneva Convention. If we intend to install democracy in any nation we cannot do so by 'any means possible.' Such extremes must be reserved for desperation. The is hardly a desparate nation. In the case of Iraq we are the 'Aggressor.' As such we must not act in a depraved manner. Torture does not inspire Loyalty or Trust.
The Geneva Convention Rules should be required reading for all soldiers.
also relevant is The Stanford Prison Experiment, and other studies of Obedience and Authority by Stanley Milgram

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I went to the lab for blood work again today. The phlebotomist specifically told me not to stop at the bar on the way home. She drew about a cup of blood and I had been fasting since six last night. I would have made it into the Lab early but my car wouldn't start. I had to recharge the battery some. That got me thinking that I ought to clean the garage because it was difficult to move around in there.I did have to rearrange one whole shelf just to get a power cord. and I threw away a broken iron. Naturally I kept the box. I realized that peter hasn't moved out yet. I doubt he ever will. I can't do anything without moving his stuff. We have been fighting a war of reprisals over personal space for twenty years. Then he moves out, leaving a ton of broken, impacted, graveyard-of-the-damned appliances and a billion "rags for cleaning." There's also a large number of empty coffee cans high up on a very small shelf. Booby traps. He used to change his clothes out there. In fact he used to practically live out there kept his clothes, excercized he even used to cook out there. When the stove didn't work for five years, he started using a tiny microwave oven that Masha gave me years ago. He would go out and heat his food and his tea. But do you think that he ever swept? I know he thinks he cleaned but It's just not so. He only cleaned the spot where he would sit and meditate. eventually i moved the microwave into the house and turned on the stove there was nothing wrong with it the whole time. five years. He claimed that it was dangerous and we couldn't afford to fix it. What he really wanted was to remodel the kitchen. That would be less expensive for him because he would use Masha's savings. Neither Masha nor I would grant that it was a good idea It would just let him play carpenter boss for a year or two that it took to do the work. Nothing would be comfortable. He actually tried to starve us into making the decision that he wanted. By controlling the one burner hot plate where he cooked his important meals (Lunch and Breakfast in the morning and dinner at night) he kept The rest of us from preparing our own food. I had the good sense to take a job in a restaurant during that time so I always ate.
But now Peter is gone. H e left without saying good bye. Masha asks me didn't he even care about us? for her there was almost no warning. one Sunday she asked him why he had opened a new bank account and he fled the house saying "I don't need this." Two days later he called to tell her that he was moving out. He knew she had an appointment. He rang her on the cell while she was on her way. She canceled the appointment and called me to get me out of the house. Her fear was that he would try to provoke a confrontation with me and use it to validate his departure. So Masha came back and she and Denny Loaded Stuff like the house Title and Financial papers into his van for temporary storage. Peter did try to grab as much of the records as he could. H couldn't say much because he had a friend with him for "protection," It wouldn't look right for him to demand the title right there while He was leaving. Masha inherited the house from her Father, Allen.
So he left. He and Mash have known each other since he was Twenty Two. They lived and worked together for Eleven years in Maine before coming to Florida in Nineteen Eighty One. They have been married for about fifteen years. We don't know why he left we only know that he was unhappy here.

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MSNBC - Powers of the President
from MSNBC - By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball

The Supreme Court has begun hearing arguments about whether George W. Bush can jail American citizens indefinitely

'Into a bright future...

April 28, 2004
By Jovial Rantao
Pretoria: The African weather obliged. So did the African autumn sun. Its rays, penetrating through the scattered clouds, danced on the faces of the thousands that descended on the Union Buildings to bear witness to a historic and emotional moment.
Africa and the world had descended on the Union Buildings, a symbol of power, to witness the inauguration of Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki being installed as the third democratically elected president of South Africa.

black trench coats chasing blogs.

Blog-Tracking May Gain Ground Among U.S. Intelligence Officials

via Yahoo! News, by Doug Tsuruoka

The article Mentions Salam Pax and Riverbend. The author seems to suggest that a panel recomends that Military and Intelligence Personel read weblogs for information. The two panelists named apear to be democrats who supported Howard Dean's Candidacy. The article also mentions China's policy on banning weblogs.

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All the trouble in the world and all I can do is repeat other peoples worries. That's what this web log feels like most of the time. If I had a clear agenda, I might get somewhere. So How did I start; Why do I do i t and what do I hope to achieve?
Furcadia sent me an Email warning that my character would be deleted if I did not log on sometime soon. I backed up the software quite some time ago and now I can't find it. I think its on one RW disc that I damaged but i thought I made more than one of those.
Any way I down loaded the software and I had to create another character. I'm not sure about my password either. I need the old INI file
Those who Don't know Furcadia Don't need to check it out Unless they are interested in Massively Parallel Multi User Games... There are usually hundreds of players. You would also need to be interested in pretending to be a furry animal or Furre. Not really as weird as it sounds. The characters are all user created, people often do their own artwork and maintain web pages with character descriptions. The main action is dialog driven This is not PS2. Furcadia users also design their own games and environments using a script. In short, There is a whole subculture of players.

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Help is On the Way

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Election protection

ElectiOnline
Another "watchdog" organization. They have a handy interactive map for locating the address' of county election offices.
Less strident than Voters Unite. .
One Important discussion here is whether Flawed voting machines can be made accountable by November.
The Collins Center for Public Policy, has Some Downloadable Documents about The Governor's Task Force in Florida.

VotersUnite!

from randomWalks

randomWalks: One Man, 1.045 Votes
Help Deliver the Truth about E-Voting to your COUNTY!

We've delivered in our first few days info packets on Electronic Voting to 10% of US Counties

We need your help to deliver the rest, please contact us to pass the truth to your county

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Ellen Theisen
360-437-9922
ellen@votersunite.org

Voters Unite in 22 States to Challenge Myths about E-Voting

Port Ludlow, WA, Wednesday, April 21. Yesterday, at 1:00 ET, 41 groups of people in 22 different states simultaneously hand-delivered copies of "Myth Breakers for Election Officials" to their local election officials.

"Myth Breakers for Election Officials," is a 57-page research document detailing facts such as:

- HAVA (Help America Vote Act) misunderstandings
- recent election disasters
- price comparisons of e-voting systems
- hidden costs of DREs (Touchscreen Voting)
- election complexities of DREs
- alternative HAVA-compliant voting systems

In response to a call from a VotersUnite!, a non-partisan voter awareness organization, grassroots organizations collaborated with each other to kick off "Project Myth Breaker," a grassroots effort to deliver an eye-opening document on e-voting into the hands of every local election official in the United States.

The website www.VotersUnite.org was launched less than two weeks before the kick-off, and the call to action came only a week before the event.

Ellen Theisen, co-founder of VotersUnite! and former Executive Director of VerifiedVoting.org said, "The response from around the country was overwhelming! People are so concerned about the problems with electronic voting that they jump at the chance to take some action to educate others."

"Many of the officials who received the document were grateful to have the information," she added. "The President of the Connecticut Registrars Association made sure that every one of the 169 Registrars in Connecticut downloaded a copy of the document."

Brief recaps of some of the kick-off events are at (http://www.votersunite.org/takeaction/kickoff.htm)

VotersUnite! has received commitments from individuals and local organizations in eight states to deliver copies to every county in their states, and many other individuals are still signing up for their own and neighboring counties.


There are still a lot of states to be done, so don't be shy to help out.

www.votersunite.org


Members of the press are invited to download the document, which is at (http://www.votersunite.org/takeaction/mythbreakers.pdf)

###

There are still a lot of states to be done, so don't be shy to help out.

www.votersunite.org

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Gmail

I took the bait and Sig(h)ned up for A Gmail Account Go ahead and look at The agreement. This Email service is under much scrutiny. If you search Gmail with the Google engine. You Should (at this Writing) find some articles about California's response to the new product.
Particularly Liz Figueroa, Who is working to ban the practice of Scanning personal e-mail for advertising purposes.
She has in mind, the European Union's Privacy guidelines.

I understand The Privacy Issue, But is Email A secure Communication To begin with? My understanding is that Only an encryption strategy can make Email Secure.

Down With Diebold!

E-voting panel wants to dump troubled system
By Elise Ackerman

Mercury News
Via Joi Ito
SACRAMENTO - Less than seven months before the presidential election, an advisory panel Thursday unanimously recommended an unprecedented ban of touch-screen election equipment used in four California counties.
...
The state began investigating Diebold soon after the November 2003 election, when it discovered the company had installed untested software on what turned out to be all 17 voting systems it had sold to California counties. Those systems include more traditional optical-scan equipment.
Of course there were http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=217&row=2 in the Y2K election. Besides Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris' order to Scrub African Americans from the ballots, There were also the celebrated Chad Issues, and some errors in the census report. At present we are too late to eliminate the Machines from the Election. At best we can hope to make the election votes countable.

search topics:

Secretary of State Kevin Shelley
Attorney General Bill Lockyer
Marc Carrel, assistant secretary of state
Diebold
AccuVote-TSx

I picked up this meme from Shelley Power's blog, BurningBird

1. Grab the nearest book
2. Open the book to page 23
3. Find the fifth sentence
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions

"Lo miraba a la luz de una vela." From The University of Chicago Spanish Dictionary. The fifth full Sentence, showing the usage of the preposition 'a.'
The book was the closest. I had it out on the table to look up common words. I always bothers me that i never became fluent in another language.
Since that book was a reference, I reached over to the shelf nearest to me. I pull down Haiku, Volume One: Eastern Culture, by R.H. Blythe. I chase the silverfish away to find the following sentence;

"Among them may be mentioned Muso Kokushi, 1271-1346, founder of the Tenryuji Temple, which became the headquarters of the Rinzai branch of Zen."

I hadn't noticed the old book right next to me, hidden by the edge of the book case. It was printed in 1949, part of a four volume set. I had expected to find a verse by Basho. Instead the trail leads back to the abbey.

The Laughing Meme published an account of the meme's history

Survivor: America

"When I hear talk about "anti-Americanism" it angers me. Why does American identify itself with its military and government? Why is does being anti-Bush and anti-occupation have to mean that a person is anti-American? We watch American movies, listen to everything from Britney Spears to Nirvana and refer to every single brown, fizzy drink as "Pepsi".
---Riverbend

I'm thinking of taking the 'SiteMeter' button off the page. They always run Ads for the Bush campaign. I really don't want him elected. I don't think our new voting machines will allow any other possibility though. They have no accountable paper trail. I hope Floridians see this. We didn't get to vote in the last election.

New stones

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Not much done last night. Polished some older silver pieces, and experimented with enamel. Melted glass on metal surfaces. Should have read the label first though. the colors are all Barium, lead and copper, none of which is good for people. Looks pretty though, and Glass is one of the most popular "new" media. Borosilicate (pyrex) makes beautiful durable gems... in the right hands. I'm just discovering, though. ordinary glass Enamel glass is simple to do but hard to master. Powdered glass mixed with pigment is applied to a clean metal surface and melted with an acetylene torch. The organic nature of melted glass works with the fluid lines of my lost wax casting work. And I'd rather make gems than worry about the quality I get from a dealer. Real rocks are great but the stuff people are making is really great. It goes beyond fakery and imitation. Every artisan begins to develop their own touch and special process.

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Wish me luck, I go for my Physical Exam to day.
Then to the casting studio, this afternoon.

What He Said...

The only case in which the Executive can enter on a war, undeclared by Congress, is when a state of war has 'been actually' produced by the conduct of another power, and then it ought to be made known as soon as possible to the Department charged with the war power.---James Madison


"Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose - - and you allow him to make war at pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after you have given him so much as you propose. If, to-day, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, 'I see no probability of the British invading us' but he will say to you 'be silent; I see it, if you don't.'"---Abraham Lincoln


The provision of the Constitution giving the war-making power to Congress, was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons. Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. But your view destroys the whole matter, and places our President where kings have always stood.----Abraham Lincoln

How difficult is it today to speak your mind in a nation divided by war?

I argued with a friend to day about. the stupid war with Iraq. he was really talking about Vietnam and defending the honor of the soldiers he fought with. He kept telling me that 'they' hide behind women and children. I yelled "don't we have women and children fighting? whats a twenty year old soldier with no combat experience?" my freind said that 'they killed more of us than 'we' did of them. We werent really talking about the war.

I went to an art show.
Why do people lack the ability to change?

If poetry could pick apart the atom,
Unravel D.N.A., or stop old age,
It's value could be measured with a gauge
And read so clearly anyone could fathom
The full five feet of every line and verse.
But there's more to poetry than metered lines,
The by-products of our frustrated lives
Or an attempt to set things right with words.
We could think of poems as frozen time,
As threads of thought, holding words together.
What connects them is not the verse or rhyme
But measured breath, a date, a time, a thought.
An emotion we had before dying,
A ripple on the waters that was caught.

All the words that I have ever spoken
Add up to nothing when I think of you.
Not that words should have sums or anything.
But if we would have our prayers come true,
We might look further than the simple frame
Of verses and prose with which we make do.
Nothing says it like a poem, false or true.
We all lie. But who cares how the crime
Was committed. We're older than we know.
We all come from somewhere, or say we don't.
There's not much help that words can give us.
And we should not expect them to do more.
It's only an illusion that we talk at all.
Or write it down to defend our doom.

I but lived where motley is worn:

All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born

Do it: A Simple Process for Creativity

DO IT is an acronym that stands for:

D - Define problem

O - Open mind and apply creative techniques

I - Identify best solution

T - Transform



Some very useful information here at Mind Tools

If you recently used Google to search for the word "Jew,"....

Words play funny tricks on the mind.

Neo Liberal and Democratic Fascism

As opposed to conservative, liberal implies progressive, aiming to change things while conservative implies keeping them the way they were. Another sense of the word liberal is idea of non inter ference. The liberal would say let them do what ever...con servatives would say we don't do that around here.
Fascists come in both colors. Fascism occurs when a group accepts no other opinion but their own and enforce that with Physical or intellectual retribution. Mob rule could be considered an example of anarchic fascim. Republican fascists in late TwenCen used 'liberal' to bad mouth Democrats, intellectuals and 'the media'
Neo Liberal implies a contrast to that lingering definition. Since the terms liberal and coservative have recently lost most meaning theyn can only be interpreted through context. Adding the prefix 'Neo' does not fix the problem.
Comments from Word Pirates

Project Wormwood

Planetary Defense
A great Idea. I'd love to hear that more people were worried about this, and taking action.

I killed the bunny

We used to say that we raped sombody's Turtle But bunny, is funnier.

men of mystery

I was adopted.
My dad died in March 2002. He was a scientist and an academic administrator. I have not seen him since the mid eighties. In 2000 i wrote a brief letter and he responded that he did not want contact with me... at least not directly.
None of his obituary notices mention a son.
I learned of his death in march 2003.
He did in later years begin a geneological research project. My sister, has those documents but does not seem to understand why I would like to see them.
My biological parents are both younger... Their separation may have had something to do with the Vietnam war. Or so I was told. But my bio-father has been a Scotsman since '62 (The year I was born) and I have spoken with him once . . .To my knowledge.
the truth is that most of my best friends are Vietnam Vets.... so I have an Identity confusion. My Adoptive parents were nearly old enough to be my grand parents.

Life is weird

French find Saint-Exupery's plane

http://news.BBC.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3606903.stm

A French underwater salvage team has discovered the remains of the plane piloted by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, 60 years after he disappeared.

The author of The Little Prince vanished during WWII on a reconnaissance mission over southern France.
This has always been a mystery, as though he might have flown off to some other world. I read The Little Prince several times when I was young. First on my own during one of my parents long summer cruises, Then in school a few years later with Mr Loeb, who always graded papers with a bright green Flair pen. A few years after, we read the same book in the same classroom, This time with Mrs. O'Brien, a French woman who taught so well that I was able to skate through three years of High School French as if I already knew the language. (actually Mr. Coleman's class was demanding.)
I never did read Wind Sand and Stars. Now, I think that I will. It always bothered me that the died in a war. Growing up During the Vietnam era, The images of death and killing always haunted me. My Adopted Father was a WWII veteran, who never spoke of his experiences, but he watched endless movies and documentaries. And in the news they gave a body count.

My Little Problem: metaphoric

DON'T THINK TWICE, IT'S ALL RIGHT
(Words and Music by Bob Dylan)
1963 Warner Bros. Inc

Death poems on a wiki

Dylan Thomas is a good start.
I'd love to build some hyperlinked references to these ... especially Altarwise by Owl-light

old pals

an old associate, (high school) is playing Sunday april eleventh

security any one?

most of these articles sugest that the reasons for invading Iraq were bogus.

Spalding Gray Memorial at Lincoln Center on April 13

J.P. Barlow reports that NYPD found the body of Spaulding Gray

My Little Problem

"Your enemy is not surrounding your country. Your enemy is ruling your country."--George W. Bush
Lew Rockwell
Slate
American Humanist
Gannett

Meetup

The Word Spy

A place to find new words.

Our Little Problem

I started this wiki without much to say in my blogs

SeedWiki

SeedWiki

Most bloggers probably are familiar with Wiki.

The Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics, by David Dodd

The Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics, by David Dodd


Not much to say to day. I like this type of annotation mark up.