Any slaughter would be forgiven them if it had a meaning, if it could be interpreted as historical violence -- this is the moral axiom of permissible violence. Any violence would be forgiven them if it were not broadcast by media ("Terrorism would be nothing without the media"). But all that is illusory. There is no good usage of the media, the media are part of the event, they are part of the terror and they are part of the game in one way or another.

Repressive actions travel the same unpredictable spiral as terrorist actions -- none can know where it may stop, and what reversals may follow. At the level of the image and information, there are no possible distinctions between the spectacular and the symbolic, between "crime" and repression.

And this uncontrollable unraveling of reversibility is the true victory of terrorism. It is a victory visible in the underground and extensive ramifications of the event - not only in direct, economic, political, market and financial recessions for the whole system, and in the moral and psychological regression that follows; but also in the regression of the value system, of all the ideology of freedom and free movement etc... that the Western world is so proud of, and that legitimates in its eyes its power over the rest of the world.

Already, the idea of freedom, a new and recent (sic) idea, is being erased from everyday lives and consciousness, and liberal globalization is being realized as its exact reverse: a 'Law and Order' globalization, a total control, a policing terror. Deregulation ends in maximal constraints and restrictions, equal to those in a fundamentalist society.
/QUOTE

New York Times Book Review: 'First prize for cerebral coldbloodedness'

Talk about cutting through the bullshit. I kinda thought old Marxists just sat around apologizing for Lenin starting the Gulag. This one just knocked my socks off. Jean Budrillard is definately on my watch list now.

The Spirit of Terrorism -- Jean Buadrillard

] Once upon a time, there was a SPC Schwarz stationed with
] the Army in the Balkans. SPC Schwarz was either very
] clever or very bored; but probably both, since he managed
] to attempt or be warned about 213 things he wasn't
] allowed to do. He collected those things into a
] hillarious list and posted them to the web. The site
] hadn't been updated in a couple of years and has since
] gone away; but the list is classic, so I saved it.

There are some great ones in here..

# Not allowed to chew gum at formation, unless I brought enough for everybody.

# (Next day) Not allowed to chew gum at formation even if I *did* bring enough for everybody.

# My name is not a killing word.

213 things you can't do in the Army

] Artists get a full 50% of the purchase price. And unlike most record labels,
] our artists keep the rights to their music.
]
] Founded by musicians, for musicians.
]
] No major label connections.
]
] We are not evil.

Turns out I like Renaissance Guitar Music. $8 for the album, $4 goes to the artist. This site rules.

Magnatune: try before you buy MP3 music.

The results support the idea that HIV arrived in the United States around 1968, long before the first AIDS cases appeared. AIDS was first reported in 1981 and was retrospectively recognized as having struck in the late 1970s. This is compatible with HIV's roughly ten-year incubation period.

HIV's history traced HIV's History Traced: US virus arrived early and spread fast.

Cold beer going cheap. Tank and small military unit needed to get it out of fridge.

After cooling off in a watery grave for more than three weeks, 10 tons of beer have been rescued from beneath the ice of a Siberian river with the help of a T-72 tank, Emergency Situations Ministry troops and six divers. Its fridge, a KamAZ truck, was not so lucky.

One diver was injured in the operation Tuesday, but the beer is good enough to be sold, if at a discount, said the beer's producer, Omsk-based Rosor, which is perhaps best known for its Sibirskaya Korona label.

The beer ended up beneath the ice of the Irtysh River in the Omsk region after the truck delivering it sank while crossing a southern passage over the river just a few days before New Year's.

Russian Troops and Tank Struggle to Save Beer

] Nokia will make an internal version of the Perl scripting
] language for Series 60 smartphones available to its
] developer community, Lee Epting, Nokia's VP of Developer
] Relations, tells us. Nokia acknowledges a demand for more
] developer options as Nokia's Symbian-based Series 60
] platform reaches mass market volumes.

This qualifies as "rad".

The Register | Nokia to release Perl for smartphones

Most cool family tree of electronic music. Includes sound clips representative of each genre.

This is most cool.

Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music

] Once prion diseases infect a body, the proteins change
] shape and, with a kiss of death, turn their neighbors
] into clones of themselves. Clumps of misshapen proteins
] form, overwhelming neurons and poking holes in the brain.
] Death is inevitable.

Wired News: Prions: When Proteins Attack

Cognitive Systems is a multi-disciplinary undergraduate program involving four departments: Computer Science, Linguistics, Philosophy, and Psychology. It provides students with a thorough grounding in the principles and techniques used by intelligent systems (both natural and artificial) to interact with the world around them.

Cognitive Systems at the University of British Columbia

Decius wrote:
] 2. You are financially incented to re-recommend songs to
] friends.

Efforts on many fronts are underway to test methods of making actual markets for music. I've been saying this was the only way to go for awhile now. We still don't know what information is worth at any given time.. At the very least context and demand are important factors.. Lots to learn here...

Keep in mind, when we were saying roughly that this kinda stuff was that we needed to be trying 1999-2000'ish, everyone though we were nuts, and it wasn't going to be possible. The music industry people are desperate now, and amazing enough, Microsoft is the big enabler.. Someone was paying attention.

] It is unfortunate that this is a Windows only.

Like we didn't know Microsoft was going to do their best to make sure that was the case.. They said "screw the store" and worried about selling the technology to those who were going to take all the risks and do all the innovation. I think their strategy has been very smart. They did have the opportunity to go the other way, I know that for fact.

They are not going to "bet the company" until they think they got the right answer..

] Of course, somewhere in middle America some stupid adult is
] going to end up throwing a fit because there are kids dealing
] weed.

Can you think of a better example of a more pervasive underground economy? You can get pot anywhere in America if you know the right people and are trusted. Might shock some people, but your burn out pot dealer may possibly know more about economics and trade then most college educated adults. Get the kids selling music. Education thru experience. Someone has a sense of humor, an additional objective, or both.

RE: Weed