It is in the hopes of keeping the attention of the public, and that of our elected officials, on this subject that the writers of this collection of essays have put pen to paper. They include a former president, the speaker of the House, two former White House chiefs of staff, current and former senators, generals, admirals, intelligence officials, interrogators, and religious leaders. Some are Republicans, others are Democrats, and still others are neither. What they all agree on, however, is this: It was a profound moral and strategic mistake for the United States to abandon long-standing policies of humane treatment of enemy captives. We should return to the rule of law and cease all forms of torture, with no exceptions for any agency. And we should expect our presidential nominees to commit to this idea.

No Torture. No Exceptions.

“It was a total waste of time,” Jerrold Nadler , D-N.Y., said of the secret session. “Frankly, we think the whole thing was a bluff. But we called it. They thought, ‘We’ll call a secret session and the Democrats will reject it, then we can say they didn’t want to hear all the information.’ ”

...

A dispute broke out when an unnamed Republican started to talk about a topic that Democrats considered off limits under the ground rules for the session, since it was at a higher security clearance level than the discussion up to that point. But one Republican lawmaker said the discussion was in bounds. “We tried to give them the information, but they didn’t want to hear it,” the lawmaker said.

Ding!

Tom Price , R-Ga., said he was disappointed by the partisanship on the floor during the closed session. “There were two different camps in the approach. One camp was interested in talking about issues. The other camp was talking about . . . politics,” Price said.

Will someone please tell me where Republicans have discussed the issues? Have they explained why President Bush thinks the Electronic Frontier Foundation sees "a financial gravy train" in these lawsuits? Is there a place where they describe just exactly how the system they have established prevents their domestic surveillance apparatus from being abused for domestic political purposes? Have they explained why amnesty will not create perverse incentives for telecoms to comply with unwarranted surveillance in the future?

CQ Politics | Secret Session Brings House Members No Closer Together on Surveillance

Memestreamer Cyan got $7 million in funding for Zivity!

The site allows both amateur and professional models and photographers to show their stuff. Users vote on those that they like, which channel real dollars to the talent. The more votes, the more money. The basic site is free, but users must pay to vote. About 40% of gross revenue is given directly to the talent. With a recent redesign, the site is focused much more on social networking - users and talent have profile pages and can add each other as friends. They’ve even added a news feed feature that shows who is adding who as friends, and which models users have voted for.

Go Cyan!

Zivity Takes $7 Million In Venture Financing

From Decius:

A new web service that lets users rate and comment on the uniformed police officers in their community is scrambling to restore service Tuesday, after hosting company GoDaddy unceremonious pulled-the-plug on the site in the wake of outrage from criticism-leery cops.

Regardless of what you think of sites like "RateMyCop" the bottom line is that it is not appropriate for GoDaddy to pull a domain name without contacting the administrator. This is not a phishing site. Following this and a number of recent takedowns by ENOM; we need new regulation at the ICANN level that prohibits this sort of shoot first and ask questions later behavior. While the fact that GoDaddy personally contacted me in response to my complaints when they shut down seclists, this incident demonstrates that a year later their policies haven't changed. Actions speak louder than words.

This really does bother me. All my domain names are hosted at godaddy.com. As renewals come up, I am seriously going to consider moving to another registrar, even if it is more expensive.

GoDaddy Silences Police-Watchdog Site RateMyCop.com | Threat Level from Wired.com

Seriously, here's the deal. Yes, the origins of Outerz0ne were a bit dubious. I'll be the first to admit it. The second year, we tried to get away from the original idea for OZ1, and I think we did a decent job. This is the third year. We're not competing with any other cons, we're on our own timeframe, and we're not meeting in a hotel room. It's still a small, social type con, but we've grown large enough to have a small ballroom this year.

Why are we doing this? Frankly, because it's a blast. We get a chance to get together with our friends and people we've only talked to online, and hang out, exchange ideas/knowledge, and party a bit. We've got some good talks lined up, some great social activities, and some of the coolest people on the planet attending. YOU. The price is right, and it should be a great time. Come hang out with us and relax for the weekend. Bring the cool toys you've built and show them off.

Several folks from MemeStreams will be present as always is the case. It is sure to be a fun weekend.

Outerz0ne 4 - March 21-23 2008

Other information:
Ghosts I-IV is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license.

An exciting partnership and experience regarding this release will be announced soon.

Trent is following through on his threats. I couldn't be happier.

Latest NIN Album released under a CC license

An established utility, a wind-farm developer, and a consortium of commercial fishermen each have proposed building giant turbine-driven power plants off the Jersey Shore, hoping to demonstrate the viability of the ocean breeze as a clean source of electricity.

The three proposals vary widely - locations, for example, are between three and 16 miles off Atlantic or Cape May County - and timelines are iffy. Theoretically, however, within five years 100 spinning turbines could be generating 350 megawatts, enough to power 125,000 homes.

This is the first I've heard of this. Pretty cool..

Three propose wind farms off Jersey Shore | Philadelphia Inquirer | 03/05/2008

[1] Meet up with us next Wednesday (March 5th) to go to Nashville and protest! (5:00 AM - March 5th) we will have a bus - we will leave at 5AM in Knoxville (meet at COPYSHOP).

Gather at 8AM (if you can get there by yourself)
on the corner of 6th and Union St in Nashville!

The primary broken thing about the rule being protested here is that it would require Universities to institute a surveillance system that watched network traffic and identified transfers of copyrighted content.

Copyright protest in Nashville March 5th - COPYFIGHT NOW!

William F. Buckley Jr., the erudite Ivy Leaguer and conservative herald who showered huge and scornful words on liberalism as he observed, abetted and cheered on the right's post-World War II rise from the fringes to the White House, died Wednesday. He was 82.

R.I.P.

William F. Buckley Jr. dies at 82 - Yahoo! News

MemeStreams: Its just like having real friends!