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First, check out the newsfeed on the right (which I am keeping updated as best I can, I'll probably be looking for helpers in the new year). The second story is the interesting one, with a NJ town now requiring tattoo artists to serve a 2,000 hour apprenticeship (about one year full-time), and piercers a 1,000 hour apprenticeship. It's an interesting step because it's one of the first real moves I've seen to attempt to kill off scratchers.
President George Bush has to put up or shut up. If his administration has hard evidence that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, he has to put that evidence on the table for everyone to see. Otherwise his credibility and the credibility of the United States will be zilch.
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Surveillance culture: Next week in Washington, the cameras get turned on to monitor pro-life (ie. anti-abortion) and anti-war groups. Now, on some levels I don't have a problem with public spaces being watched, as long as there's some reasonable way for the public to access those records as well — public surveillance, if accessible by the people can protect against police brutality and much more as well.
However, we know these aren't going to be publicly accessible, and the reasons given by the officials and the public are ludicrous. Here are two that really struck me:
- “Post-911, terrorists could use these events as a target.”
This one comes from the officials themselves. Are we seriously being told that terrorists are targeting pro-life groups and anti-war organisations? Terrorists are not known for wanting their countries bombed, nor are they known for their support of abortion! - “This country is in a different place now”
This one comes from the Reverend organising one of the marches. I think this is pretty much the biggest lie that's been presented to the American people since the attacks. While America certainly has things it must address, the last thing it should be doing is rolling back its civil rights, which to me seems akin to the suicide of a nation.
Here's a good quote from John Pilger, a UK journalist who echoes what many reporters in the West, at least in the US/Canada*/UK/Australia/etc. sphere:
Many journalists now are no more than channelers and echoes of what Orwell called the official truth. They simply cipher and transmit lies. It really grieves me that so many of my fellow journalists can be so manipulated that they become really what the French describe as functionaries, functionaries, not journalists.(more)
That's growing to be one of the bigger stories of 2002 I think; the death of responsible media, at least as far as a media that is easily accessible by the masses. At this point the news on TV serves specific political and cultural goals and has little to do with fact or actual news reporting.
Of course, 2003 will be marked by the total death of privacy with the US forcing ISPs to help build a centralised monitoring system for the Internet. Not only would this system allow your actions on the Internet to be monitored, but they would also allow you to be monitored. Comments on Slashdot, who's running this as its lead story as I write this included,
I think this sounds like a great idea. Sincerely, Satan.This is from the same person that asked, "Will the highways on the Internet become more few?" (Dubya, January 29, 2000, Slate.) Be afraid. Be very afraid.
What, Carnivore isn't good enough?
Isn't this already happening by virtue of Echelon?
Let's look one fact in response:
- Encryption and obfuscation technologies are really really good.
People who don't want their Internet usage monitored can easily hide what they're doing. Not only that, but as time goes by, it will become easier to do so because networks designed around such ideas are more effective a la Freenet. So that brings us to an obvious conclusion: these proposals have nothing to do with monitoring or stopping terrorism. They have the sole purpose of monitoring the average American, who won't be running privacy tools on their home computer.
Now let me point out one perhaps more important fact:
- Other countries aren't going to pass these laws.
One of the side-effects of this type of legislation is pushing US tech companies out of the country. That's not a good thing for the already failing US economy — the last thing it needs is to fall to the bottom of the innovation pile. The US lead the world over the past 100 years because it was able to ride the crest of the industrial age and push hard into the information age. However, if it forgets how it got here, it can and should expect to face a similar fall from power that Britain experienced.
Or America could blow the last of it's money on stupid ideas like a missile defense shield targeting attacks from the Middle East. First of all, it doesn't work. Second, it doesn't work. Third, it's proposed for one reason: to allow the US to take military control of space. Hello fucked up world when that happens.
War on terror? I guess we surrendered.
Anyway, it's all about screwing over the American people, so a pile of traitors that have seized country by force can get richer and more powerful. Revolution now!**
* I don't usually read or watch the mainstream news. Yesterday I listened to the radio news on the drive home. Usually I listen to the CBC, which is shockingly pro-terrorist and even unamerican for a government sponsored station (and I believe really sums up the Canadian mind-set as a whole), but yesterday it was the “dumbed down” news. It was kind of shocking — the report talked about America and Britain had shown evidence that Iraq had WMDs, had handed over no complete report of its weapons capabilities, was gassing its own people, and so on. So don't think that the media in other Western countries doesn't try and keep its people ignorant as well.
** What do I mean by that? At a minimum, don't play their game. Invest in yourself, not in them.
It's so warm here today. It's actually raining and all the snow has melted. I can literally walk around comfortably with a t-shirt outside. So far the long-term forecast is showing it staying warm. So who knows, maybe the New Year's party will seem more like an “early spring” party. Either way, a giant bonfire will guarantee warmth.
Anyway, time to go work on the year-end winner shirts. I'll post them shortly.
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