The most recent Hajj occurred during the first half of January 2006.

There were a number of stampedes, called "tragedies" in the press, during the Hajj which killed several hundred pilgrims.

These were not unavoidable accidents, they were the results of poor planning by the Saudi government.

And while the deaths of these pilgrims was a mere blip on the traditional western media's radar, it was a huge story in the Muslim world. Even the most objective news stories were suddenly casting Saudi Arabia in a very bad light and they decided to do something about it.

The 350 pilgrims were killed on January 12 and soon after, Saudi newspapers (which are all controlled by the state) began running up to 4 articles per day condemning the Danish cartoons.

There rarely is a clearer case of "Death to the West" being used to divert attention away from local problems.

Daily Kos: Muslim Cartoon Controversy: What the Media Isn't Telling You

1) Profits are up, but the wages and the incomes of average Americans are down.
2) More and more people are deeper and deeper in debt.
3) Job creation has not kept up with population growth, and the employment rate has fallen sharply.
4) Poverty is on the rise.
5) Rising health care costs are eroding families' already declining income.

Short and to the point.

via the Economic Policy Institute.

What's wrong with the economy?

The latest (February 6) issue of Newsweek has a picture on page 39 of
George Bush visiting the NSA headquarters in Fort Meade. A wall-sized
screen in the background displays the latest versions of our favorite
open source security tools, including Nmap, Metasploit, Snort
Ethereal, Cain & Abel, and Kismet. Nifty.

Fyodor's nmap scanner makes another cameo appearance, this time its not with Trinity in the Matrix, but with George Bush in a press conference at the NSA.

Nmap Development: NSA tracking open source security tools

Here's where the reality meter goes into overdrive. VeriSign is also the company that sells about half of the net's SSL certificates for "secure ecommerce [4]." These SSL certificates are what presumptively protect connections between consumers and merchants. It is claimed that a certificate that is signed by a certificate authority (CA) can protect against the man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack and also domain name spoofing.

A further irony is that VeriSign also runs the domain name system for the .com and the .net domains. So, indeed, they do have a hand in the business of domain name spoofing;

The point here is that, on the one hand, VeriSign is offering protection from snooping, and on the other hand, is offering to facilitate the process of snooping.

It's not just SSL certs and the .net/.com domains VeriSign is being trusting with anymore. The ability to tap mobile phone calls is on the slate now too. VeriSign is a wolf in wolf's clothing. I can't think of any reason to trust them, and they are positioned in a way where there is no choice or recourse other than to deal with them. They are a perfect example of a(n even more) major problem waiting to happen.

Financial Cryptography: VeriSign's conflict of interest creates new threat

The post points to broadcast flag draft legislation sponsored by Senator Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) that contains provisions which appear to limit digital broadcast media reception devices to "customary historic use of broadcast content by consumers to the extent such use is consistent with applicable law and that prevents redistribution of copyrighted content over digital networks."

It is being widely alleged that Gordon Smith has been influenced by the $250,000 the National Association of Broadcasters gave to his party last year.

It is imperative that the Senate not pass laws that halt innovation. Just because these things can be nocked down in the courts does not mean they do not pose a serious risk. This is exactly the type of thing that stops innovation by making investors unwilling to take risk in companies and individuals working on new ideas. We have not reached the place we need to be yet in the digital content space. Legislation such as this will not help our progress, it will stop it dead in its tracks.

Oddly, I was not able to find any information about this bill in Thomas.

Big Content would like to outlaw things no one has even thought of yet

Iran has started moving its foreign exchange reserves out of Europe in a bid to shield the country from the threat of sanctions, reports suggest.

9/11 may have caught you by suprise, but whatever goes down with Iran, say you knew it was coming...

The 20th Anniversary of the Chernobyl Disaster comes around this April. Prepare for a blitz of documentaries on the History Channel, CNN, and other media outlets remembering this horrible event. Expect it all to be spun into reasons why Iran shouldn't have access to nuclear energy. Say you read about it on MemeStreams first.

The meme will go something like this: "If we can't build more plants ourselves to get out of our energy bind, why the hell should Iran? NUCLEAR ENERGY IS DANGEROUS!"

BBC NEWS | Business | Iran 'moves assets out of Europe'

The American Constitution Society and the Liberty Coalition host a speech by Fmr. Vice Pres. Al Gore at the DAR Hall in Washington. Gore speaks about the limits of executive power, the issue of monitoring domestic communications and the authorization of the use of torture in the war against terrorism.

Transcript here.

This is the best speech Gore has given lately. It may be the best speech he has ever given. Its rare you get to see Al invoke some true passion. In many of his speeches, he takes sly swipes at the opposite political party in ways I've often thought were inappropriate. In this case, the entire speech was a swipe, but an entirely deserved and accurate one. Not just against the Bush Administration, but the entire Congress.

One comment that has been abound lately, is that the Democratic party is lacking a single clear and concise voice. Is Al prepared to be that voice, again, for real this time?

C-SPAN: Fmr. Vice Pres. Gore Speech on Executive Powers

In fairness to Yahoo, which handed over information -- and MSN which likely did the same -- it is important to note that it is not just spin that no privacy issues were involved with this particular data. As I explained in the story, the information is completely divorced from any personally identifiable data.

Lots of good information in here about the Google FBI thing. Apparently they don't want IP addresses...

Bush Administration Demands Search Data; Google Says No; AOL, MSN & Yahoo Said Yes

The Bush administration on Wednesday asked a federal judge to order Google to turn over a broad range of material from its closely guarded databases.

The move is part of a government effort to revive an Internet child protection law struck down two years ago by the U.S. Supreme Court. The law was meant to punish online pornography sites that make their content accessible to minors. The government contends it needs the Google data to determine how often pornography shows up in online searches.

In court papers filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Justice Department lawyers revealed that Google has refused to comply with a subpoena issued last year for the records, which include a request for 1 million random Web addresses and records of all Google searches from any one-week period.

Here we go... Many of us, Decius in particular, were predicting this. Only difference, is we didn't think Google would take a stand.

Bush wants Google search data

We are scholars of constitutional law and former government officials. We write in our individual capacities as citizens concerned by the Bush administration's National Security Agency domestic spying program, as reported in The New York Times, and in particular to respond to the Justice Department's December 22, 2005, letter to the majority and minority leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees setting forth the administration's defense of the program.

This letter is a bit repetitive due to its structure, but the legal explanation offered here is relatively clear and concise.

On [Domestic] NSA Spying: A Letter To Congress