This April a hacker broke through Negativland's UMN mainframe firewall and stole the final version of Negativland's top-sacred for-internal-use-only "Mashin' of the Christ" video project. Negativland prayed that their in-house project would not make it into the hands of the unsuspecting public, but we all know how hard it can be to stop those "peer to peer" criminals from illegally sharing the property of others.

And what exactly did these hackers steal from Negativland??

"The Mashin' of the Christ" was/is Negativland's top-secret-not-for-viewing video response to the number one film in America. Negativland decrypted, downloaded and mashed up the most violent religious film ever made along with over 27 other Hollywood portrayals of Jesus to create their own vision of the last moments of Christ's life... all in four minutes and 14 seconds. Is Christianity still stupid? Is Communism still good? Negativland hoped that no one would ever find out for sure.

But that hope was dashed on Easter Sunday, 2004, when the video project was stolen from Negativland's hard drive, and then, just last week, released onto P2P networks worldwide. Negativland's friends and lawyers who had seen "The Mashin' of the Christ" had strongly advised against a public release ever occuring (the "anti-circumvention" provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act says that doing this sort of decryption to make collage is illegal), but since God is said to see all secrets, only the public is left to be surprised by this unauthorized birth from Negativland. Voracious pirating of this work has spread across the Net and in the last few days high-resolution versions of "Mashin'" have even been appearing on P2P networks disguised as a complete copy of "The Passion of the Christ."

This was recommmended to me and I thought I would pass it on.

'The Mashin' of the Christ'

Recent Blogads survey. Nothing too surprising. The audience in the blog world is educated, mostly students and teachers. Lots of managers, computer professionals, and people in the legal field.

Blogads: reader survey for blog advertising.

] Due to the fact that Jonnyx has been unresponsive to
] email and voicemail for over 48 hours we are proud to be
] able to make this once in a lifetime offer directly to
] YOU! Item is a slightly used Electric Cattle Prod that
] has been blessed by the Reverend Pope Jonny Anonymous
] himself!!! Item delivers high voltage shocks upon
] application!

eBay item - Electric Shock Cattle Prod NORESERVE!!! L@@K!

] The US Senate has voted to allow a plan that opens up a
] remote wildlife refuge in the northern state of Alaska to
] oil drilling.

] Senators voted 51-49 against an amendment which would
] have struck the measure from the federal budget.

] The plan has long been a key part of President Bush's
] energy plan, as a means to reduce US reliance on imports.
] Democrats and some Republicans have opposed the plan,
] arguing that the wilderness should be left untouched.

] New Mexico Republican Pete Domenici said before the vote
] that the refuge had the country's "most significant
] onshore production capacity".

] But Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, who proposed the
] amendment, said there was no way the US could drill its
] way out of its energy crisis.

] Correspondents say there is not much interest among the
] oil companies in drilling in the refuge, as its economic
] potential no longer seems promising.

These are the statistics on the area

] Area: 19 million acres, the size of North Carolina
] Home to 45 types of mammal, including polar bear and
] caribou, and 180 species of bird
] Oil potential: Up to 16 billion barrels

the vote is scheduled later this week

Senate backs Alaska oil drilling

] a conversation between Clay Shirky, Stewart "Flickr" Butterfield,
] Joshua "Delicious" Schachter and Jimmy "Wikipedia" Wales at the
] O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference in San Diego. Folksonomy
] is the process of letting users generate and apply their own tags
] to shared items and then discovering which tegs users share with
] one another. Unlike previous ventures into this field, the tags
] aren't "controlled"

This is an interesting conversation

Folksonomy conversation

] The bill would make it much harder for families in
] distress to write off their debts and make a fresh start.
] Instead, many debtors would find themselves on an endless
] treadmill of payments.
]
] The credit card companies say this is needed because
] people have been abusing the bankruptcy law, borrowing
] irresponsibly and walking away from debts. The facts say
] otherwise.
]
] A vast majority of personal bankruptcies in the United
] States are the result of severe misfortune. One recent
] study found that more than half of bankruptcies are the
] result of medical emergencies. The rest are
] overwhelmingly the result either of job loss or of
] divorce.

Paul Krugman was on the daily show railing about this bankruptcy bill, which we feels has not received adequate press coverage.

The State | 03/09/2005 | Bankruptcy bill another blow to safety net

I highly reccomend this children's book. It really helped my young son draw some connections between what he hears and a real person that is living in the midst of it all.

"The book was inspired by a July 2003, article in The New York Times about Alia Muhammad Baker, the chief librarian of Basra's Central Library, who was determined to protect the library's holdings when US troops entered Iraq and fighting and looting broke out.

When her own government refused to help, Ms. Baker began spiriting the collection to safety herself, book by book. She carried the books to her home and to a neighboring restaurant, managing with the help of friends to preserve 70 percent of the collection before the historic building burned to the ground nine days later.

In the article, Baker remarked "In the Koran, the first thing God said to Muhammad was 'Read.' " Winter, who has written biographies for children, was hooked. "What Alia realized was that without books, you lose history, culture, the rich exchange of ideas," she says.

Some Basra residents, however, thought Baker's endeavor was simply looting and questioned why she didn't steal something more valuable than books. "I got a kick out of reading about that," says Winter. "There really is nothing more valuable.""

The Librarian of Basra - A True Story From Iraq

The family made a plea to eBay clothing sellers to keep an eye out for a sweatshirt like this - I thought I'd pass that along, the photo is on the site....

"The photo below shows a sweatshirt Brooke Carol Wilberger was wearing when she was abducted from the Oak Park Apartment complex in Corvallis, OR May 24, 2004. We are attempting to locate a sweatshirt from the same or similar lot to compare fibers/dye at the crime lab. FreshJive headquarters informed us the records for this sweatshirt are no longer available and they are unable to assist us in providing a sample. The company has made numerous versions of sweatshirts. This particular sweatshirt is estimated to be marketed around 1999 to 2000 time frame. We are not sure. Therefore, it is necessary to make a public appeal for assistance in finding a matching sweatshirt. If you have a sweatshirt matching the one depicted in these photos, please contact Corvallis Police Department at 541-766-6989 (Brooke Wilberger Tip Line Case No: 04C03557) at your earliest convenience. "

Police need a sweatshirt like THIS

] Dear Condi, I'm glad you've decided to get over your fit
] of pique and venture north to visit your closest
] neighbour. It's a chance to learn a thing or two. Maybe
] more.

] I know it seems improbable to your divinely guided master
] in the White House that mere mortals might disagree with
] participating in a missile-defence system that has failed
] in its last three tests, even though the tests themselves
] were carefully rigged to show results.

] But, gosh, we folks above the 49th parallel are somewhat
] cautious types who can't quite see laying down billions
] of dollars in a three-dud poker game.

Damn.

View from the West

From Planet Nashville

] Winchester police say William Poole, 18, was taken into
] custody Tuesday morning. Investigators say they
] discovered materials at Poole's home that outline
] possible acts of violence aimed at students, teachers,
] and police.

] Poole told LEX 18 that the whole incident is a big
] misunderstanding. He claims that what his grandparents
] found in his journal and turned into police was a short
] story he wrote for English class.

] "My story is based on fiction," said Poole, who faces a
] second-degree felony terrorist threatening charge. "It's
] a fake story. I made it up. I've been working on one of
] my short stories, (and) the short story they found was
] about zombies. Yes, it did say a high school. It was
] about a high school over ran by zombies."

] Even so, police say the nature of the story makes it a
] felony. "Anytime you make any threat or possess matter
] involving a school or function it's a felony in the state
] of Kentucky," said Winchester Police detective Steven
] Caudill.

] "It didn't mention nobody who lives in Clark County,
] didn't mention (George Rogers Clark High School), didn't
] mention no principal or cops, nothing,"

] On Thursday, a judge raised Poole's bond from one to five
] thousand dollars after prosecutors requested it, citing
] the seriousness of the charge.

Student Arrested For Writing Zombie Story