Concerning COPPA and children under 13:

For the time being, if you are under the age of 13, we're going to have to ask you not to use this website. We don't like this at all. This company's founders were both avid computer users at the age of nine, and certainly could have used a service like this.

Unfortunately, the government has made it very difficult and expensive for us to provide service to you. We want to fix this, but we have more pressing problems right now. Please ask your parents to email us at feedback@memestreams.net and tell us that you would like to use our service. Once we've established that there is enough demand for this service from people in your age group we will figure our what we will need to do to allow it.

© 2001 The Industrial Memetics Institute.

Sibel Edmonds said she spent more than three hours in a closed session with the commission's investigators providing information that was circulating within the FBI in the spring and summer of 2001 suggesting that an attack using aircraft was just months away and the terrorists were in place. The Bush administration, meanwhile, has sought to silence her and has obtained a gagging order from a court by citing the rarely used "state secrets privilege".

...

A write up in the Independent about a whistleblower coming forth. Here's a transcript of an interview with her too:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/03/31/1616221#transcript

Here's to hoping that this gets investigated further, drawn out into the public eye, and shown to be true.

'I saw papers that show US knew al-Qa'ida would attack cities with aeroplanes'

"Whenever there's a decline in the death rate in Iraq, whenever there are fewer soldiers killed or maimed than in the month preceeding, you'll see a lot of bluster and hyperbole coming from right wingers: things are going great! We can sure see the light at the end of the tunnel NOW!

Well, we've heard about that light at the end of the tunnel before. Sometimes it turns out to be an onrushing train.

I don't like to do the inverse, to jump on every report of a fatality as proof that I am right and all who oppose me are wrong. But given that the mutilated bodies of Americans--either contractors or CIA guys, depending on who you believe--are now being dragged triumphantly through the streets by cheering throngs...well, I think I speak for a lot of people when I respectfully ask the next right winger who might be tempted, in a month or two, or whenever the next lull hits, to write about how we've really turned a corner NOW--to instead, perhaps, consider shutting the fuck up [Emphasis added.]"

--Tom Tomorrow

---

Well said Tom.

Falluja

phunktion wrote:
] In response to the recent lawsuits that the RIAA have filled
] against 261 US file sharers the EFF have placed a petition on
] their website that has drawn a large audience. It started off
] with a target of 10,000 signatures but the number is now more
] than 4 fold this. The petition will be sent to congress to
] help campaign for an end to the lawsuit madness of the US
] music industry.

Here's a novel idea: STOP DOWNLOADING AND SHARING COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL THAT YOU DID NOT PURCHASE

It has worked for me for quite some time now. I don't have any mp3s or software that I did not purchase. I don't feel sorry for the chumps getting sued. They are a bunch of spoiled babies crying because their toys are being taken away from them. Suck it up, buy your music, quit whining about it. If you didn't give the RIAA a reason to be litigious bastards, they wouldn't be litigious bastards.

Here's my commentary on this petition:

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is on a rampage, launching legal attacks against average Americans from coast to coast. Rather than working to create a rational, legal means by which its customers can take advantage of file-sharing technology and pay a fair price for the music they love, it has chosen to sue people like Brianna LaHara, a 12 year-old girl living in New York City public housing.

Spare me the Sally Struthers routine about the children. The RIAA is not launching attacks on average Americans. They are going after people who are stealing their product. If the RIAA does not want to create a means by which its customers can share files, that's their choice. Everybody shed a tear for Brianna living in the projects with internet access. Brianna, here's a clue: Use your computer to sharpen your intellect, use the public education system to get a scholarship, and get out of your situation. Downloading mp3s is a waste of your time as a developing youth compared to other ways you could be growing.

Brianna, and hundreds of other music fans like her, are being forced to pay thousands of dollars they do not have to settle RIAA-member lawsuits -- supporting a business model that is anything but rational. This crusade is generating thousands of subpoenas and hundreds of lawsuits, but not a single penny for the artists that the RIAA claims to protect.

No they aren't, they brought it upon themselves. Again, who cares about whether the RIAA's business model is rational? If you don't like it, don't buy the music. If you steal the music, the RIAA does have recourse. People bought the music for decades with the copyright warnings. Now that there is technology in place to actually put some teeth into the enforcement, people start bitching. Deal with it. Oh and the artists, they know what they are getting into when the sign. Spare me the sob story for the poor artist.

Responsibility for your... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

RE: Take a Stand Against the Madness; EFF Stop the RIAA Petition

Elonka wrote:

] this investigation. I also really despise any insinuation
] that the White House knew about the impending attack but did
] nothing to stop it. That's just absurd.

How about August 6th, 2001? Bush received an intelligence briefing that mentioned hijackings. So says Condoleeza Rice. She qualified that though by saying it was only an "analytic brief." Sure, whatever.

The House and Senate intelligence committees wrote a joint report on Sept. 18th, 2002 about 9/11. In that report, it was stated that in July of 2001 "senior government officials" were warned of:

"a significant terrorist attack against U.S. and/or Israeli interests in the coming weeks. The attack will be spectacular and designed to inflict mass casualties ... (it) will occur with little or no warning."

I don't consider it absurd that the White House knew. As for whether they allowed it to happen, it is kind of scary to think they would do that. Off-course airplanes were intercepted 67 times in 2001 prior to 9/11 as part of standard operating procedures. With the apparent stand-down orders for our air defense on 9/11, it seems pretty obvious to me it was an inside job.

The FAA was putting out plenty of warnings that summer about threats. I could list them all but a Google search for "9/11 warnings" will show plenty of documented warnings.

Ashcroft stopped flying commercial airlines during the summer of 2001. He stopped based on FBI threat assessments. When he was asked by reporters if he knew anything about the threat, his answer was, "Frankly, I don't." Another time when asked, he simply walked out of his office.

The Justice Department did come out and say it was "completely unrelated" to 9/11, citing nonspecific threats against his life. Not that Ashcroft's Justice Department would try to cover for him or anything, I mean, I'm not insinuating *THAT* :)

All in all, it's kind of sad that the 9/11 commission's work is wrapping up during an election year. People like me, who aren't going to vote Republican or Democrat, Bush or Kerry, we don't care about either party. But since many people do, it cheapens the whole thing to partisan politics. This should have been done as soon as the attacks took place. That it's taken this long to get where we are is a shame. I hate the timing because it's in an election year. It becomes too convenient for both sides to turn it into just another campaign issue instead of investigating the biggest terrorist attack on US soil in our history.

There are so many facts around 9/11 that are suspicious that it's hard to digest all at once, even if you do have an open mind to it. I'm a skeptic by nature. Consider this:

"An average of 3,053 put options in Merrill Lynch are bought between September 6-10, compared to an average of 252 in the previous week. Morgan Stanley, another WTC tenant, sees 12,215 put options bought between September 7-10, when t... [ Read More (0.7k in body) ]

RE: Bush Agrees to Let Rice Testify Publicly

Jeremy wrote:
] Six members of two restless clans called the Street
] Ninjas and Gravity Pac circled each other at Grand Central
] Terminal last Sunday. ... Satisfied, they started clasping
] hands, knocking elbows and throwing down French slang.
]
] The spread of parkour into the woods of Georgia and the
] deserts of Arizona occurred almost entirely through the
] boundlessness of Internet message boards.
]
] "The American scene is a sleeping Joe at the moment," he said,
] adding that it is only a matter of time before an American
] leader emerges.
]
] "You need an open mind, and away you go."
]
]
] Transatlantic divide? Says who?

He's pretty much considered the founder of this whole movement. To call this "freestyle walking" as some people call it is really not doing him justice. He's in a league of his own.

More videos:

http://www.le-parkour.com

http://www.annuaire-parkour.com/parkour/?page=videos

RE: New Way for Teenagers to See if They Bounce

] There was Bush looking under furniture in a fruitless,
] frustrating search. "Those weapons of mass destruction
] have got to be somewhere," he said.

ah ha! AH HA HA! Thats right - since there apparently never WERE any, just move the goal posts and make the whole WMD thing out to be one big joke! Guess those 600 (and rising) BODY BAGS of US soldiers that have been coming home in a steady stream for the last 12 months are a joke too?

B.A.S.T.A.R.D. -LB

Bush pokes fun at himself at dinner

Squarepusher at Echo Lounge in ATL, 4/24 @ 9:00 pm. Will be a great show.

Squarepusher in ATL, 4/24

A year ago today I was visiting my mom in the hospital. She was recovering from surgery at Vanderbilt. Dad and my sister were there as well.

The news was hitting on the television that the UN weapons inspectors were pulling out, and Bush told us we were going in. I think that's the first time I truly realized how wars today work.

With the first year of occupation almost over, I'm reflecting this week on friends I know who will be put in harm's way to guard oil. I'm understanding how this critical resource will change the immediate future. I'm thinking about shiny chromed SUV's and the owners who will be paying an ever increasing premium on the fuel to drive them. And never forgetting that it has a blood price attached.

"When they turn around and say John Kerry would be soft on terror, they don't use a picture of Osama bin Laden. They use a young good-looking, Middle Eastern male turning around looking furtively," said James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, which called on the Republicans to change the ads.

...

It's at the usual place, http://www.georgebush.com/tvads/ In the video "100 Days" after the "War on Terror" splash. Go full screen when you watch it, it's easier to see the actor's nationality.

Actually, this time his ad me laugh. I can only wonder what's next out of this twit.

Election ad 'plays on fear of Arabs'