] America has 47,000 power plants, airports and other
] "critical infrastructure facilities."
]
] Walker believes a terrorist can get within 100 feet of
] most of them, unchallenged and undetected, and kill or
] injure thousands.
]
] But if onsite cameras beamed photos to the World Wide
] Web, Americans could monitor these sites from home. If
] they spied a potential attacker a masked man
] trying to scale a power plant fence, or a van parked next
] to a reservoir they could alert security agents
] with a click of the mouse. Agents would call local
] authorities and help avert disaster.
]
] Walker envisions spotters getting up to $10 per hour,
] paid by the government agencies and companies that need
] protecting. He wants to sell USHomeGuard to the federal
] government for $1, then charge fees to run the system.

This is so freaking Orwellian, its scary. Keep an eye on this one folks...

Laughing Boy

Webcam homeland

,----
| VANCOUVER - A top White House drug policy official is threatening
| retaliation from the U.S. if Canada relaxes its laws against marijuana
| possession.
|
| David Murray, right-hand man to U.S. "drug czar" John Walters, says he
| doesn't want to tread on another country's sovereignty, but warned
| there would be consequences if Canada proceeds with a plan to
| decriminalize the possession of marijuana.
`----

Oh, really? So now tell me, would that be a 'Shock and Awe' type
retaliation?

CBC News: U.S. warns Canada against easing pot laws

Even as White House political aides plot a 2004 campaign plan designed to capitalize on the emotions and issues raised by the September 11 terror attacks, administration officials are waging a behind-the-scenes battle to restrict public disclosure of key events relating to the attacks.

...

By refusing to declassify many of its most significant conclusions, the administration has essentially thwarted congressional plans to release the report by the end of this month, congressional and administration sources tell NEWSWEEK. In some cases, these sources say, the administration has even sought to “reclassify” some material that was already discussed in public testimony—a move one Senate staffer described as “ludicrous.” The administration’s stand has infuriated the two members of Congress who oversaw the report—Democratic Sen. Bob Graham and Republican Rep. Porter Goss.

...

In Graham’s view, the Bush administration isn’t protecting legitimate issues of national security but information that could be a political “embarrassment,” the aide said. Graham, who last year served as Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, recently told NEWSWEEK: “There has been a cover-up of this."

...

... because the document relied so heavily on secret material, the administration “working group,” overseen by CIA director George Tenet, had to first “scrub” the document and determine which portions could be declassified.

More than two months later, the working group came back with its decisions—and some members were flabbergasted. Entire portions remained classified. Some of the report—including some dealing with matters that had been extensively aired in public, such as the now famous FBI “Phoenix memo” of July 2001 reporting that Middle Eastern nationals might be enrolling in U.S. flight schools—were “reclassified.”

...

One portion deals extensively with the stream of U.S. intelligence-agency reports in the summer of 2001 suggesting that Al Qaeda was planning an upcoming attack against the United States—and implicitly raises questions about how Bush and his top aides responded. One such CIA briefing, in July 2001, was particularly chilling and prophetic. It predicted that Osama bin Laden was about to launch a terrorist strike “in the coming weeks,” the congressional investigators found. The intelligence briefing went on to say: “The attack will be spectacular and designed to inflict mass casualties against U.S. facilities or interests. Attack preparations have been made. Attack will occur with little or no warning.”

The substance of that intelligence report was first disclosed at a public hearing last September by staff director Hill. But at the last minute, Hill was blocked from saying precisely who within the Bush White House got the briefing when CIA director Tenet classified the names of the recipients. (One source says the recipients of the briefing included Bush himself.) As a result, Hill was only able to say the briefing was given to “senior government officials.”

...

Hopefully the truth will find its way into the light about 9/11 someday. Bush's administration is doing everything in their power to keep the lid on the truth. It wouldn't help his re-election bid if the public knew he sat on his ass and let it happen.

If you live in America, if you call this your home, wouldn't you like to know everything possible about 9/11? I still want to know why the Air Force was told to stand down that day. I still want to know more about those fishy stock put options and how they were traced back to A.B. Brown. What is the classified information linking the Israeli spy ring in America to 9/11?

Lots of unanswered questions. Keep the issues alive.

The Secrets of September 11

]update A U.S district court on Thursday ruled for a second time
]that Verizon Communications must give up the identity of an
]anonymous Internet subscriber accused of swapping music files
]online.

The beggining of the end?

What is the world comeing to?

Verizon has 14 days to ID kazaa user

] Liars, all of them, according to Jo Hamlett, the mayor of
] this tiny Fox River town just north of the Missouri
] border, who fills many a day soaking up the stories spun
] around the long table here at A.J.'s. Tired of the
] extra-tall tales, and always on the lookout for cash to
] pave the town's roads, Mr. Hamlett has proposed an
] ordinance to ban lying here.
]
] "I just feel like it would put a little more Midwestern
] honesty back in these people," Mr. Hamlett, 69, said,
] adding that the hunting and fishing here are so good, no
] exaggeration is necessary. "I'm for God, motherhood,
] apple pie and honesty. That is my agenda."

Shh... can you hear that??? It's very faint, but it sounds like the beginning of "Dueling Banjos"....

Hear the One About the Mayor Who Wanted to Ban Lying?

]The Wacky Patent of the Month is devoted to recognizing selected
]inventors and their remarkable and unconventional patented
]inventions.

As of 4/24/03 this site if profileing a dimple making machieen, yes the dimples people have on their cheeks.

The Wacky Patent of the Month Site

I dont know what scares me more, the fact that this exist, or the fact that there is a web page devoted to it.

Is it realy the only Ass-Kicking Machine?

"Built for a game of Cthulhu Lives! that has yet to be played, this piece was inspired by the retro-futuristic machines in the movie Brazil by Terry Gilliam. It was one of the most difficult and time-consuming pieces I've ever attempted.

"Despite the ridiculous amount of abuse I subjected it to, and despite the fact that all its components are now exposed to the air, the 1988 Macintosh SE which forms the heart of this piece still works just fine. "

The ElectriClerk

] The letter said BellSouth Telecommunications Inc. had
] ''agreed, in concept,'' to become the conduit for federal
] funds to flow to all subcontractors who provided the
] Internet service under the ENA contract.

geez.. how obvious is this?

State backs BellSouth to take over school Internet

Nothing here is new, but a generaly good read.

Exerpt

{The ARPA Computer Network is susceptible to security violations for at least the three following reasons:

(1) Individual sites, used to physical limitations on machine access, have not yet taken sufficient precautions toward securing their systems against unauthorized remote use. For example, many people still use passwords which are easy to guess: their fist names, their initials, their host name spelled backwards, a string of characters which are easy to type in sequence (e.g. ZXCVBNM).

(2) The TIP allows access to the ARPANET to a much wider audience than is thought or intended. TIP phone numbers are posted, like those scribbled hastily on the walls of phone booths and men's rooms. The TIP required no user identification before giving service. Thus, many people, including those who used to spend their time ripping off Ma Bell, get access to our stockings in a most anonymous way.

(3) There is lingering affection for the challenge of breaking someone's system. This affection lingers despite the fact that everyone knows that it's easy to break systems, even easier to crash them.

All of this would be quite humorous and cause for raucous eye winking and elbow nudging, if it weren't for the fact that in recent weeks at least two major serving hosts were crashed under suspicious circumstances by people who knew what they were risking; on yet a third system, the system wheel password was compromised -- by two high school students in Los Angeles no less.

We suspect that the number of dangerous security violations is larger than any of us know is growing. You are advised not to sit "in hope that Saint Nicholas would soon be there".}

Basics of Spoofing, a good read for those interested in networking.