I believe that the greatest threat to liberty in the United States is posed by the religious right, largely comprised of Christian fundamentalists. Across a broad spectrum of issues they want to move the law in a radically more conservative direction, ultimately threatening our freedom.

Wow, this is entertaining. Its a nice website but it doesn't seem to have any high profile supporters. Coming out against religious conservatives may be suicide even for Democrats in most areas.

On the subject of nice websites, in my search for a place in America's political system I thought I'd go through Wikipedia's list of American party factions and see if there are any that I find agreeable. I found two.

The Democratic Freedom Caucus promotes "individual liberty, constitutional democracy, and social responsibility." Look at this crummy website, and compare it to the vast "we're not commies, really" progessive movement and the Democratic Leadership Council, (an authoritarian group I like to call "Soccer Mom Democrats" because they are always looking to "protect" you with rules and taxes). Pause to reflect on how marginalized actual freedom is in our political system.

The only other group is the Main Street Republicans, who are so marginalized in their party that they are referred to as "Republicans in name only" by everyone else in their tent. They are clearly also unable to afford a decent web designer. (Of course, it could be a lot worse.) They say: the message of the Partnership is "one of quiet diplomacy, rather than wedge politics." Isn't that refreshing?

Honorable mention goes to the Libertarian Party's Republican conspiracy, the Republican Liberty Caucus, but I'm no longer enamored with the philosophy that government is incapable of accomplishing useful things. I became interested in them because "withdrawing in disgust is not the same thing as apathy." Unfortunately I think their on paper utopianism doesn't stand scrutiny.

DefCon Blog

Able/Danger was an experiment in a new kind of warfare, known as "information warfare" or "information dominance." One of the program's missions was to see whether al-Qaida cells around the world could be identified by sifting huge quantities of publicly available data, a relatively new technique called "data mining."

The data miners used extremely complex software programs, with names like Spire, Parentage, and Starlight, that mimic the thought patterns in the human brain while parsing countless bits of information from every available source to find relationships and patterns that would otherwise be invisible.

Some information about Able/Danger that I had not heard before. There are many questions here. Did this program ID Atta? What did it know about him? Was Atta a U.S. person? Did Pentagon Lawyers prevent the information from being shared with domestic authorities? If so, why? All of these things are up in the air and will remain so for a while.

Nevertheless, let me offer a bit of blind speculation which is interesting even if it turns out to have little relationship to what actually occured.

Apparently Able/Danger was a primordial Total Information Awareness program. If Atta was merely identified by computer profiling and it was not known whether or not he really was a terrorist, its possible that the lawyers were concerned about prompting FBI investigations into U.S. persons based on the results of a computer profile run in an extremely experimental program that they weren't sure was reliable.

What I'm getting at is that this might not be a question about Posse Comitatus but rather a question about computer profiling, law enforcement use of computer profiling results. The concerns that were raised about TIA would apply here as well. Its possible that they did not know he was a terrorist. They only knew that a neural network said he looked similar to other people who were terrorists, and if they were wrong they were concerned about kicking up the civil liberties storm that TIA eventually DID kick up.

If a computer profile did, in fact, ID a 9/11 terrorist prior to 9/11, does that change the way you feel about programs like Total Information Awareness?

U: It seems as though The Washington Times has raised this same question. I don't know if this link is the most reasonable thing I've ever read in the Washington Times or if I'm starting to go insane.

Able/Danger and Total Information Awareness

When Congress agreed this spring to tighten the bankruptcy laws and crack down on consumers who took on debt irresponsibly, no one had the victims of Hurricane Katrina in mind.

Oh whatever, those people are totally responsible for the fact that their city flooded. They shouldn't have taken on debt knowing that hurricanes sometimes blast cities. How can we imbue a sense of personal responsibility in our society if people don't have to pay back debts they incurred before totally unpredictable, collosal disasters!

Strict bankruptcy law new blow for victims | IndyStar.com

Rattle has been asking for a tinyurl replacement that allows you to see what your going to be viewing before you get redirected to it, with a cookie based option for turning that feature off... Here it is...

Make A Shorter Link

LiftPort Group Inc., of Bremerton, Wash., has successfully tested a robot climber — a novel piece of hardware that reeled itself up and down a lengthy ribbon dangling from a high-altitude balloon.

Furthermore, the company has created LiftPort Nanotech in Millville, N.J. That company is delving into mass production of nanotubes, focused on creating super-strong materials, “because, ultimately, that’s what leads to a long and strong ribbon in the sky,” Laine said.

“We’re not a PowerPoint company anymore … we’re a hardware company,” Laine concluded.

This is great to hear. Michael Laine did several very interesting talks at DragonCon this year. I was quite impressed. Hopefully everything will work well for them as they push their climber designs to the one mile limit.

Space elevator robot passes 1,000-foot mark - Space.com - MSNBC.com

I was congratulating myself on a sail well done when the wind completely died 1.5 miles away from the pier... I thought that I might as well try and have the swell vector me towards the Santa Monica Pier anchorage... I made the mile in 3 hours (after dark), barely missed the submerged breakwater, and dropped the anchor a good ways off the pier....

I cleaned up a bit, got the sails secured, and blew up my pool raft. I put some clothes in a bag, and set off in the raft... Just like every other pier, there were a bunch of shops and stuff on this one, people fishing off the side, and a ladder that went up from the water. I rowed over to the ladder and started to tie the dingy off when all of a sudden I was spotlighted by a police officer with pistol drawn, screaming at me to back away from the pier! I was pretty surprised, and asked if there was another ladder that I was supposed to use. He was saying "You can not approach the pier, stay 150 feet away from the pier at all times, you can land on the beach if you want to." I'm trying to ask what the deal is with a beach landing when another guy shows up over the side and starts screaming that if I continue to disobey their orders that they will impound my boat.

So I turned around and rowed away. I looked towards the shore and saw some breaking waves... So I waited for the end of a set, and started rowing as fast as I could... Finally an overhead wave hits me, tosses me out, and I wash up on shore - completely soaked - with an overturned dingy and a bag full of wet clothes...

Someone was screening Star Wars on a HUGE screen right there, so I decided to wait a while for the tide to come up and the swell to go down before trying to go back out. There were a number of people standing around, wondering how I just materialized from the dark ocean with a little pool raft...

Just then, the cops roll up. The big cop comes over and starts screaming at me again, right in front of these other guys (who turn out to be lifeguards). I'm looking at the lifeguards like "Holy shit, can you believe this?" and they're looking at me like "Dude, we're sorry."

It turns out that it's a magenta alert or whatever right now, and the Santa Monica pier is a "major terrorist target", so it's not OK to have a boat anchored near it, and that I have nothing to say about it because I don't know the status (pronounced stay-tus) of this "structure." The cops called the lifeguards, because they have a boat capable of towing mine away. "The fuck you're towing my boat, I'm going back out right now." "If you attempt to return to your boat, I will arrest you." "For what?" "I don't need a reason."

Moxie is awesome!

And Together We'll Face The World!

""The United States has lost control of their budget at a time when racking up deficits has been authorized without any control (from Congress)," Breton said.

"We were both disappointed that the management of debt is not a political priority today," he added."

(ouch!)

Greenspan tells France that the US has LOST CONTROL

Directory of Computer Recyclers in Georgia

A very useful resource. Computers are made with bad stuff and should not be tossed in the trash.

Pollution Prevention Assistance Division: Computer Recycling

The Navy does not now train, nor has it ever trained, its marine mammals to harm or injure humans in any fashion or to carry weapons to destroy ships.

KILLER DOLPHINS FROM OUTER SPACE.. .we'll.. ok they are from Earth but this relates to another one of today's memes.

U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program

The biggest problem that the "anti-war" movement has right now is the illusion that somehow the war they protested starting in 2003 is the same war that they're protesting today.

I agree with this sentiment. I am not convinced that we went into Iraq the right way. I've been on the fence about that from the start. I am convinced that leaving right now would be a terrible thing to do. There is an important job to do in Iraq today and we need to see it through. Furthermore, I'd bet there would be broad international support today if we requested it.

Staying the Course - The Daily Californian