Weblog 2003-02-09

Annalee Newitz nailing  Rumsfeld's DoD and its effort to regulate wireless digital communications to eliminate the possibility of open networks:

"Somebody doesn't like the idea of unregulated communication. WiFi is scaring the government not because it's a tool of terrorism but because it's a tool of unregulated political dissent."

And Lisa Rein points me to Michelle Goldberg's "Salon" piece on the Shrubbyist Right, which asks at the end "...why the right hates so very many Americans."   Exactly!   Ms. Goldberg, in "IT'S A RIGHT-WING HATE FEST BABY!"  discusses the annual CPAC (Conservative Political Action Com) conference across the Potomac from the White House

"a world where passionate worship of the president is part of a brave rebellion against government, where Sweden is a hellish dystopia and Tom Daschle a die-hard Marxist.   ... (where)  right-wingers still fancy themselves an embattled minority facing an army of wily, ruthless leftists, who they hate with the righteous fury of the downtrodden."

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are these words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again: but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?
 

Weblog 2003-02-07
 
 

"Kabul" by Mimi Hirsh is just out in paperback, and has been reviewed by Homira G. Nassery in an email.  Ms. Nassery is a native of Kabul now working for the World Bank; her review is available at this link: http://www.jimpivonka.com/unpublished/KabulBkRev.html   And here is the cover and link to the Amazon.com order site. I found the review deeply touching in itself, and look forward to reading the book.

Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 "Patriot (Repression) Act II" --Unreleased proposed legislation -- The next step in the Shrubbyist program of fascist repression in the US (from CLG):   The Bush Dictatorship is preparing a bold, comprehensive sequel to the USA Patriot (Repression) Act which will give the government broad, sweeping new powers to increase domestic intelligence-gathering, surveillance and law enforcement prerogatives, and simultaneously decrease judicial review and public access to information. Available in full text (.pdf 12 MB)

Reports out of the White House indicate that the administration hopes to use a quick victory  in Iraq to push through this radical agenda.

Why haven't we heard about this in the U.S. TV news? (TEN NOBEL LAUREATES IN ECONOMICS ATTACK W'S ECONOMIC PLAN)

Or the Shrub's Reagan style jobless "exxonomic recovery"?

Or how the  Shrubbyists are restoring  the secretive pre-Watergate Imperial Presidency? (HNN1, HNN2)

The Beth Daponte Case?  Bet you have been following that on TV!  (It has finally made MSNBC!  After coverage by Business Week (a McGraw Hill #40 publication), following weblog coverage)  Read the BW article!

And reliable analysis of public opinion?  Compare the usual BS to Public Opinion Watch

The Changing of the Guard:   Looking for Alan Bisbort's piece on the WWW led me to very interesting weblogs and sites - these are NOT institutional, nor are they provided by members of the "60's" generation, the boomers.

I have, until proven wrong, given up on the boomer generation's ability to ever effectively grasp, use, or utilize the internet and web.  Their slowness and resistance in these matters is mind boggling - uh, y'know,  mind blowing I guess is the right phrase, y'know?  WTF is going on with them/us?  FOLKS, IT IS JUST NOT THAT DIFFICULT!   It is useful, and it is important.  And the new learning will help you stave off senility!  Get with it.

Here are web sites, indicators of  where hope for the future may lie:

• The Hamster.com - Eric Hananoki is a freshman at the George Washington University.
• Oliver Willis - 25, Oliver Willis is freelancing in Boston
• Lisa Rein - (check bio info)
• Annalee Newitz - SF Bay area, currently at MIT (Knight Science Journalism Fellowship) (mail list)



---

Weblog 2003-02-06

Material by Bill Mandel and myself which was originally  posted on the 5th and 6th of February  has been moved to the 'Drafts' section at the end of today's weblog.

I will eventually move the material  to a separate file after revising and editing both my original posting and my response to Mr. Mandel's letter.  My rewrite may combine and reconcile (and possibly expand,  lest we forget the greats - Borah, La Follet, Norris) my postings.   Fair notice!

Weblog 2003-02-05

Pentagon nutcase: France 'no longer ally' According to the head of the Pentagon's top advisory board, Richard Perle, France is no longer an ally of the United States.  The NATO alliance "must develop a strategy to contain our erstwhile ally or we will not be talking about a NATO alliance" Perle said in Washington Tuesday.
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030204-031831-1626r

The effects of the Reagan/Bush and Shrub deficits on the availability of money for any public purpose (other than war and assassination campaigns overseas and  spying on and suppressing domestic opposition at home) is readily apparent (example here).   Allen Sloan, of Newsweek, has more:   "Bush’s Depressing Economy - Everything will work out just fine, the president says. But a close look at his economic record so far suggests that he  has a ‘fuzzy math’ problem."

Weblog 2003-02-04
 

To the children of the Columbia crew "We, the Challenger children and all the children of public disasters, are hearing your hearts break.  Our loved ones were astronauts on board the space shuttle Challenger,  which blew up a few minutes after takeoff.  It all happened on live TV.  It should have been a moment of private grief, but instead it was a very public torment.  My father died 100 times a day on televisions all across the country  and since it happened so publicly everyone felt like it happened to them, and it did.  Everyone saw it, everyone hurt and everyone grieved.  Everyone wanted to help,  but that didn't make it easier for me.  They wanted to say goodbye to American heroes,  I just wanted to say goodbye to my daddy."  Kathie Scobee Fulgham, daughter of Challenger Commander, Dick Scobee

Weblog 2003-02-02

Media Concentration:  "Take Back the Media" is a web site that exposes the concentration of media ownership in the hands of private and right wing ownership groups, and provides suggestions and tools to counteract this trend.  If you wonder why the US public is so ill informed, and so misinformed, spend some time here.
 

Weblog 2003-02-02

It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and  groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation.  War is hell."  William Tecumseh Sherman

   From:    Tom Tully <ftully@rcn.com>
 

Weblog 2003-02-01

This was a very bad day.
 

To the Brave Crew of the Space Shuttle Columbia Lost in Service  February 1, 2003

Rick Husband, Commander  William McCool, Pilot  Kalpana Chawla, Mission Specialist  Mike Anderson, Mission Specialist  David Brown, Mission Specialist  Laurel Clark, Mission Specialist  Ilan Ramon, Payload Specialist

Weblog 2003-01-30

A marvelous example of life in that "freedom loving democracy", our ally in the Mid East, Israel, is found at "Liberating the Wall"  See also "Oprah, Dr. Phil, Playboy--and Me "

MoveOn Peace