] One of the things I learned in the years I have spent in
] law enforcement at both the federal and local level is
] that witnesses of traumatic events relate few details.
] When people are frightened or otherwise psychologically
] shocked, their minds don't record movies, but snapshots,
] and not many of them, either.
]
] Annie's story has a wealth of detail, so much that I find
] myself disbelieving that she could have been as afraid as
] she says she was.

One Hand Clapping: Criticism of Annie Jacobson's story

] ChristianExodus.org is coordinating the move of thousands
] of Christians to South Carolina for the express purpose
] of re-establishing Godly, constitutional government. It
] is evident that the U.S. Constitution has been abandoned
] under our current federal system, and the efforts of
] Christian activism to restore our Godly republic have
] proven futile over the past three decades.

Whew... This is fun reading. I wonder who is funding these people. They are obviously a little nuts, but they are thinking ahead.

For the past 10 years the fundamentalists have been trying to push their legislative agenda, but they've failed not because they can't get a majority vote, but because their proposals are unconstitutional.

So the next step is to go after amendments. The marriage amendment is the first step in that plan, but if they can pull it off they have about 10 more lined up to go. Only after that plan fails is a "Christian Exodus" called for. Of course, if they get people to start moving now they'll have a movement going full swing if their amendment plans don't work out and all they'll have to do is mainstream it. Thats why I'm wondering where the money is coming from here, and why I'm glad I don't live in South Carolina.

I thought it interesting to note that this website is opposed to the 14th Amendment and refers to the Civil War as the War of Northern Aggression.

Here is a classic quote: "According to the Southern Focus Poll by the University of North Carolina, hundreds of thousands of South Carolinians already think the South would be better off as an independent nation."

Christian Exodus :: Come Out of Her, My People

Anyone heard this yet?

Slabs of dub, slices of surrealism, and disembodied "found" voices make their appearance on the latest offering by ambient dub commandos The Orb.

Bicycles & Tricycles returns to the original Orb concept which isn't about songs, but lysergic landscapes. Industrial grinds propel you through one moment, only to be untethered into infinite space the next, before being snagged into synchronicity by a dub groove.

Bicycles and Tricycles | The Orb

] Most Instant Messenger users broadcast when they sign on,
] sign off, go idle, and flag themselves as away. This
] presence information is typically innocuous, useful for
] knowing if your buddies are available to chat. But when
] monitored continuously, over long time periods, those few
] signals tell a lot. This website lets you record and
] analyze anybody's IM activity.

Somebody is watching you... for someone else.

IM Watching.net

] A second variant of the Atak worm, which goes to sleep to
] avoid detection by antivirus software, has been linked to
] an al-Qaida sympathizer who once threatened to release a
] powerful worm if the United States attacked Iraq.

] Mihai Radu, communications manager at BitDefender, said
] the virus, discovered Friday, is signed by Melhacker, which
] is the moniker of a Malaysian-based coder called Vladimor
] Chamlkovic, who in 2002 threatened to release an
] "uber-worm" if the United States attacked Iraq.

'Atak' worm variant linked to al-Qaida sympathizer | CNET News.com

I want to be like Ted Turner when I grow up. I just got the sudden urge to edit together various comments from this interview into one long string. Its an effort to capture the essence of Ted..

The invasion of Iraq was the biggest debacle in the history of the world... except maybe the AOL Time-Warner merger. They can't even get Haiti right, how are they going to get Iraq right? Wars may have worked in the past, but now we have pro-football. Before there wasn't anything to be excited about so War was exciting. War isn't fun anymore. 9/11 wouldn't have happened if I had been president. We were having a cold war with Russia when I went to Russia to produce the Good Will Games. A few years later, the Berlin Wall came down. The AOL Time-Warner merger was bullshit. It was good for me. I ended up with 10% of the stock in AOL/TW. I was friendly with two other people who owned 10% each so it was OK for me. Why not? They are the original American cattle. The meat has 1/2 as much fat as beef. I am going into the restaurant business and philanthropy. Rupert Murdoch is is a bad journalist. Sloppy journalist. He runs Britain. I asked Tony Blair why he was allowed to have so much influence and Tony Blair said, "I wouldn't have my job without Rupert." He wants to rule the world. He has Britain, almost has Australia and he would like the US. He has no interest in helping anyone, in charity. He won't even give you an interview. He's not interesting in whether what he is doing is right or wrong. The $1M / yr I was getting as Vice Chairman was just hush money. You also need vision. My vision comes from thinking. I don't watch TV.

Joi Ito's Web: Brainstorms 2004 dinner interview notes - Ted Turner

] On June 29, 2004, at 12:28 p.m., I flew on Northwest
] Airlines flight #327 from Detroit to Los Angeles with my
] husband and our young son. Also on our flight were 14
] Middle Eastern men between the ages of approximately 20
] and 50 years old. What I experienced during that flight
] has caused me to question whether the United States of
] America can realistically uphold the civil liberties of
] every individual, even non-citizens, and protect its
] citizens from terrorist threats.

I'm always extra observant these days when I get on a plane. I size people up. I assess them. I've never seen anything that ended up bothering me. This person did. This is your worst nightmare airplane story.

By Jeremy's Gold Star system I'm giving this story a 1/2 gold star. This is simply the scariest thing I've read in 3 years. Don't read this if you're not prepared. Its fucked up.

Its also important. You're reading about this because of the blogosphere. I imagine that this will get wide coverage online and the mainstream press will pick it up, like the Trent Lott thing. If this is what it claims to be its as important as a successful attack. People need and want to know that things like this are going down. DHS and the airline industry would rather they didn't, for various reasons, not all of which are bad ones.

Is it what it claims to be? Thats primarily the reason why it will be important. Its impossible to know how accurate this account is until someone from the Government actually makes a statement on it. That won't happen until a large number of people are talking about it.

This story is also seriously flawed, hence the 1/2 star. Once the facts are presented, the not so facts are presented. Ann Coultier is quoted. The lack of racial profiling is questioned. Unfortunately the fact that those ideas are tagged onto this information will cloud the value of it. People on the left will think twice about blogging it or considering it. People on the right will be drawn into its conclusions by its information.

The fact is that its properly called Islamic Extremeism, not Arab Extremeism, and there is a very good reason for that, only part of which is the fact that not all Arabs are Muslim. The critical issue from a security standpoint is that if you focus all your investigative efforts on Arabs you will find an airplane full of guys from the Sudan rammed right up your ass, and you cannot tell the difference between guys from the Sudan and guys from Atlanta based on what they look like.

Those that argue for a crackdown on Arabs are not just racist, they're stupid. And not only because they're missing part of the puzzle, but also because whats good for the goose is good for the gander, and they never seem to consider that, even in the context of bombings by radical fundamentalist Christians.

This does not imply that 15 Arabs on a plane acting sketchy as all hell is not a something you ought to investigate. Clearly, in this case, if the story is true, it was investigated. To what end, who knows. I seriously doubt that if there was something substantive going on here that the agents would have just let these guys go and forgotten about it. I also seriously doubt that they would have let this woman know what they did when she called. But its irrelevant.

Assuming this information is accurate, I'll say I no longer find jokes about DHS's alert system so funny.

(Of course, its worth reading this from the other direction. Maybe it was just a group of guys from Detroit rolling down to do a show. Lots of Middle Eastern people in Detroit. Maybe they had a lot to drink and all needed to hit the bathroom. Maybe they wanted to chat in the hallways because they weren't sitting near eachother. But there was enough going on here to spook the security forces. Her fears were not totally unreasonable.)

Terror in the Skies, Again? - WomensWallStreet ***1/2 Gold Star***

Here is a collection of all the artwork from HOPE for your printing and distributing needs. It turns out that the creepy Ready.gov posters weren't fake. The site that distributes them is linked from here. Now, if only they had a link for the almost funny if they weren't real "Republicans are coming, make nice" posters that were hung up on the lamp posts down the street.

The Fifth HOPE Artwork

An interesting, arty take on the concept.

GPS pic thing

Acidus wrote:
] ] This demo is the first peek of the comic book adaptation
] ] of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four. As you will
] ] see, it's still in the penciling stage. Inking and
] ] colors (sort of) are yet to come

I've always wondered about "Emmanuel Goldstein's" handle. Given his role in the scene and his character's role in the story. I wonder if they'll finish this comic.

RE: 1984 Comic Demo