Listen up

We are nearing the end of a long, busy, but pretty successful week. I think that I need to do some spygate housekeeping before we put this sucker to bed.

After several weeks of denials, the Guardian spilled the beans, and now the NSA says it did collect personal data and communications domestically from Americans, for two years under Obama, but they stopped the program in 2011 and purged all the data. Perhaps it is the least untruthful statement they could make, pardon me if I still harbor a doubt or two.

The program, described in a top secret draft report from the NSA inspector general, described the efforts of then-NSA Director Gen. Mike Hayden to fill gaps in intelligence gathering after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. One NSA officer quoted in the report described “NSA standing at the U.S. border looking outward for foreign threats” and “the FBI looking within the United States for domestic threats. But no one was looking at the foreign threats coming into the United States. That was the huge gap that NSA wanted to cover.”

We even have a couple new NSA code name monikers; evilolive and shell trumpet.

The NSA called it the "One-End Foreign (1EF) solution". It intended the program, codenamed EvilOlive, for "broadening the scope" of what it is able to collect. It relied, legally, on "FAA Authority", a reference to the 2008 Fisa Amendments Act that relaxed surveillance restrictions.
This new system, SSO stated in December, enables vastly increased collection by the NSA of internet traffic. "The 1EF solution is allowing more than 75% of the traffic to pass through the filter," the SSO December document reads. "This milestone not only opened the aperture of the access but allowed the possibility for more traffic to be identified, selected and forwarded to NSA repositories."
It continued: "After the EvilOlive deployment, traffic has literally doubled."
The scale of the NSA's metadata collection is highlighted by references in the documents to another NSA program, codenamed ShellTrumpet.
On December 31, 2012, an SSO official wrote that ShellTrumpet had just "processed its One Trillionth metadata record".
It is not clear how much of this collection concerns foreigners' online records and how much concerns those of Americans. Also unclear is the claimed legal authority for this collection.

Will be interesting to see what else shakes out in the Guardian? Like the parents tell an errant child, we should demand that the administration let us know what is really going on before we read about it in an obscure British newspaper, it usually goes easier on you that way.

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I saw another interesting story the other day, something we have touched on of late. Protesters in Washington are being classified as domestic terrorists. From the New York Times, Defendant added to Protesters Spying Suit.

An investigator working with an intelligence-gathering office in Washington State placed the names and photos of antiwar protest organizers into a domestic terrorism file, according to an amended complaint filed on Monday with the Federal District Court in Tacoma. The investigator, Chris Adamson, was described by plaintiffs as a member of the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department and a director of regional intelligence groups with the Washington Joint Analytical Center, which became the Washington State Fusion Center, one of dozens of counterterrorism offices financed by the Department of Homeland Security. Mr. Adamson helped coordinate Mr. Towery’s spying efforts and listed at least four protesters in a “national domestic terrorist database with pictures, and identifying personal information along with false claims alleging a propensity for violence,” the lawsuit said. Lawrence A. Hildes, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said the database was controlled by the Washington State Patrol.
“They have taken upon themselves to say, ‘We don’t like this person, therefore he’s a domestic terrorist,’ ” Mr. Hildes said. “It’s not only illegal — it’s absolutely chilling.”

That of course is one of the dangers of all this domestic surveillance business, when the telescope peers within, if you are the authority, it is really quite easy and tempting to target people who engage in legal dissent or just plain don't agree with you.

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I can't put my finger on any source material but I seem to recall the administration deciding a few years ago that people could be prosecuted for putting pieces of intelligence together that by themselves were legal to divulge. I believe that this is based on something called mosaic theory. Not hard to imagine these type of laws being utilized to squash legitimate dissent, is it?

Michael P. Goodwin (2010 winter). "A National Security Puzzle: Mosaic Theory and the First Amendment Right of Access in the Federal Courts". Hastings Communications and Entertainment Law Journal. Retrieved 2012-04-07. "The tension between public information and secrecy is even more pronounced when the government justifies secrecy based on "mosaic theory" - the idea that even  apparently innocuous information could be harmful if pieced together by a knowledgeable observer. Mosaic theory has had a profound impact on Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA") litigation. As terrorism-related cases play out in federal civil and criminal litigation, mosaic theory has the potential to affect First Amendment access jurisprudence as well."
 Benjamin Wittes"The Emerging Law of Detention 2.0: The Guantánamo Habeas Cases as Lawmaking -- Chapter 8 – Mosaic Theory, Conditional Probability, and the Totality of the Evidence". Brookings Institute. Retrieved 2012-04-07. "Disparate items of information, though individually of limited or no utility to their possessor, can take on added significance when combined with other items of information. Combining the items illuminates their interrelationships and breeds analytic synergies, so that the resulting mosaic of information is worth more than the sum of its parts.

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Today a lawyer for the conservative Pacific Legal Foundation, Harold Johnson, was bemoaning yesterday's 5-4 SCOTUS decision which was contrary to the apparent will of the people of California as expressed in Proposition 8.

Whether one opposes or supports Proposition 8, it's disturbing that the U.S. Supreme Court has seriously undercut California's venerable institutions of direct democracy," Johnson said. "In essence, this ruling lets elected officials pull the plug on duly enacted initiatives simply by refusing to defend them against federal lawsuits." 

An interesting question, Mr. Johnson. I have another one for you. Where were you when we said the same things about the subversion of the people's will regarding Propositions 215 and 420 decriminalizing medical marijuana? Does it merely have to do with whose oxen are getting gored?

Drunken Bodhisatva

This is on the Steely Dan Gold CD, unedited from the Santa Monica Civic. They cleaned this YouTube clip up a bit. I love the soused opening from the man who actually drove their equipment truck, Jerome Aniton. Jerome was quite the character, crashed the truck a few times, read more about him here.

Smite them

From TPM:

An openly gay state senator was censured by his colleagues on the Pennsylvania House floor Thursday when he tried to comment on the Supreme Court's ruling on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

State Rep. Brian Sims' (D) remarks during a part of the House session where representatives are allowed to speak openly were cut off almost immediately by a procedural maneuver. State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R) objected to the remarks on the grounds that Sims was speaking out "against God's law."

"I did not believe that as a member of that body that I should allow someone to make comments such as he was preparing to make that ultimately were just open rebellion against what the word of God has said, what God has said, and just open rebellion against God's law," Metcalfe said, as quoted by WHYY-FM.

Sims told WHYY that Republicans approached him after the session to apologize.

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More on the story here.

Lone Justice

Did the Texas GOP commit a felony and tamper and falsify the date stamp on an official government document? Read the story here. You boys are in trouble with a capitol T.

"Sing Sing Sing"

Road goes on forever...

Save the Nepenthes!

My friend Shawn has spent a great portion of his life, not to mention his life savings, devoted to saving rare species of plants in Thailand. He needs funding very badly. Thousands of rare plants under his loving care are in danger of extinction if he fails to get money to save them. If any of you have the means to make a donation please check out this link. Thank you.

http://www.savenepenthes.org/

http://www.savenepenthes.org/

R.I.P. Alan Myers

Devo's great drummer has succumbed to brain cancer. Still the best show I ever saw in my life. California Theater in San Diego, I was accompanied by my friend Mike Halter.

You got to walk home baby!

Re: Edward Snowden

I have an honest question, if you please, regarding all this surveillance business? Is the United States government more afraid of what the Russians and Chinese find out is actually happening or what the American public discovers is really going on?

More tough love from Washington

Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander has a great idea. Get rid of the minimum wage and instead give the working poor higher earned income tax credits.

Let me see if I get this straight? A guy is now back to making four bucks an hour at McDonalds and can't afford rent, to eat or gas for his car but it's all cool because the poor slob is going to get some money back on his taxes in March.

Does it make you feel any better to know that Alexander is the ranking Republican on the Senate Labor committee?

Do these people have a fucking clue?

The Poets c. 1966

Wendy Davis

Big shout out to Texas State Senator Wendy Davis. From teen mother to Harvard Law graduate. Exemplary day yesterday.

11 hours on her feet filibustering with no bathroom breaks.  Not allowed to lean on her desk. They tried to disqualify her for letting somebody help her put on a back brace first and then said she was off topic when she brought up sonograms. Vermin.

Dumb DOMA Doomed

Alexander the Great 333 b.c. Battle of Issus - House of the faun, Pompeii

Cromwell, Alexander, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Emerson, Willie Cather, Jane Addams, the list of gay and lesbian people is as old as the history of mankind. I applaud today's SCOTUS decision overturning DOMA, a decision which chips away at the ossified societal rubric that would deny gay couples equal rights.

These rights include rights of receivership and probate, of immigration of a foreign born spouse, the right to visit one's spouse in the hospital, social security benefits, seemingly normal societal privileges that heterosexual couples take for granted. Real tangible stuff.

The end of the oppression of gay people and their ascension to equal standing in our society is no less a watershed as the end of slavery. The fact that slavery was such an old institution did not make it right. The corollary is important. The marriage contract has been a tool to subjugate historically. In fact, until the end of the civil war, blacks had no rights to marry in this country. Jews could not marry gentiles in Germany prior to the holocaust. Interracial marriage was banned in California until 1948.

I read the entire opinion and dissent today and it was enlightening.

 

Roberts obliquely warns in his dissent that this is merely a structural bookkeeping type matter, and woe to those who think that the matter has been settled. This is the way it has always been done everywhere.

Alito takes an originalist posture, the right of same sex marriage is not spoken for in the constitution and this is the proper province of elected officials.

Which is sort of funny because yesterday SCOTUS overturned a Voting Rights Act voted on near unanimously by the elected officials and that was not good enough. Things need to be enacted by the legislature unless we don't agree with them. Scalia, as expected, evokes the most fire and brimstone. Why not polygamy now? - all that crap. Society has a role in enforcing traditional morality.

"When the Court declared a constitutional right to homosexual sodomy, we were assured that the case had nothing, nothing at all to do with 'whether the government must give formal recognition to any relationship that homosexual persons seek to enter.'"Now we are told that DOMA is invalid because it 'demeans the couple, whose moral and sexual choices the Constitution protects." Justice Antonin Scalia

Anyway you can read the dissent if you are bored, certain parts of the legal gobbledy gook are instructive.

The reaction from some conservatives is pretty funny and pretty typical. God is crying. God needs a tissue.

"Marriage was created by the hand of God. No man, not even a Supreme Court, can undo what a holy God has instituted.What the Court has done will undermine the best interest of children and the best interests of the United States.”
Michele Bachmann

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"The DOMA ruling has now made the normalization of polygamy, pedophilia, incest and bestiality inevitable. Matter of time."
Bryan Fischer - American Family Association

Boy, they always want to bring up that bestiality stuff. What's up with that?

It is clear, the tide is turning. People will have to make a decision which side of history they want to be on. This is a major human rights issue of our time and it is far from over.

Rebel Music

Sweet dreams and flying machines

My friend Jonathan Hill from Santa Fe has sent me some very interesting stuff of late. Jonathan is a superb guitar and saxophone player and a longtime dealer in tribal art and antiquities.

Recently he sent me a link to a story regarding the curious notebooks of Charles Dellschau (1828-1923). In 1969 a picker found 15 of Dellschau's notebooks, with illustrations of flying machines that long predate the Wright brothers, all encrypted in an arcane script. Read the fascinating story here.

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Jonathan also sent me a link to a curious new art form - Pakistani folk art that incorporates a new element of their landscape, the Predator missile.

This work bears a distinct thematic resemblance to the afghani war rugs that started sprouting up in the early seventies during the Soviet years, filled with the cross cultural iconography of tanks, planes and Kalatchnikovs. Who says that we no longer have any international influence?

Merry Clayton

Alabama

"wheel in a ditch and a wheel on the track"

Selectively indignant

If you run into any conservatives talking about the I.R.S., I suggest that you give them a wide berth right now, they are pretty steamed. You see for weeks they have been engaged in a kabuki drama of wallowing grief because the I.R.S. was said to be going after Tea Party groups seeking non profit status.

Now liberals are crashing their pity party. You see, when the I.R.S. man was questioned by Chairman Issa, he was specifically asked about right wing groups and that is what he spilled on. Now word comes, that people from both sides of the spectrum were being singled out for abuse, words like Progressive, Occupy, Israel, Medical Marijuana, Blue all got your file put in the dumper for further scrutiny and delaying tactics.

When word broke about the targeting of conservatives, many liberals, myself included, were outraged. Nixonian, wrong is wrong, etc. You think that the conservatives will return the favor and chastise the I.R.S. for going after progressives? Not a chance. They would rather play the "who's the bigger victim" game.

There are several possibilities here. One, the I.R.S. employees were doing there jobs as best as they saw fit, and this was just business as usual, two, they were actually targeting the administration's enemies on the left and the right. In any case I hope that the Republicans will stop with the crying about persecution. It's getting to be an old act.

You can read a bit more about the saga here.

Sweet Home Alabama

Plantation Politics

The Supreme Court struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act today, the provision of the landmark civil rights law that designates which parts of the country must have changes to their voting laws cleared by the federal government or in federal court. The VRA was defeated by a 5 to 4 vote.

This ruling overrules Congress, which had near unanimously upheld the act a few short years ago. Predictably, Republicans and conservatives, especially in the southern states, were giddy, now happy that we live in a world where racism no longer exists, unless of course it is that pernicious brand that targets white people.

The opinion, authored by Chief Justice  Roberts and joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, ruled in Shelby County v. Holder that “things have changed dramatically” in the South in the nearly 50 years since the Voting Rights Act was signed in 1965.

The court’s opinion said it did not strike down the act of Congress “lightly." “Our country has changed, and while any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions,” Roberts wrote.

I wish I felt so sure about our post racial world. Texas, as well as several other states, immediately went into Voter ID operational mode and instituted their plans to redistrict in areas with historic institutional racial bias that required federal pre clearance before today. A Federal Court ruled last year that the Texas law was discriminatory and imposed undue burdens on the poor.

“The State of Texas enacted a voter ID law that — at least to our knowledge — is the most stringent in the country,” the opinion, embedded below, reads. “That law will almost certainly have retrogressive effect: it imposes strict, unforgiving burdens on the poor, and racial minorities in Texas are disproportionately likely to live in poverty. And crucially, the Texas legislature defeated several amendments that could have made this a far closer case.”

Now the Lone Star State can have at it.

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Roberts has long been a warrior against the Voting Rights Act, way back when he was a lowly lawyer soldier in the Reagan Administration. Even when confronted with and acknowledging clear cases of institutional and governmental racism. Read this interesting story at Mother Jones.

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Other reactions were somewhat predictable.

Arizona Governor Theresa Brewer - "It's hampered us for a long time." "I think we were being punished by the Voting Rights Act for indiscretions, for bad things that took place decades ago and those don't take place any longer. We have grown and so it was the right thing to do so I'm pleased."

South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham - “Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act was a necessary tool to preserve voting rights, but due to the reform and advances in South Carolina election law, it is no longer necessary." "The Supreme Court noted this tremendous progress in South Carolina’s electoral system and it was the underpinning of their decision. I concur with the Court that our state has made tremendous progress."

Adam Cohen writes an interesting piece in Time Magazine; Viewpoint: Voting Rights Decision Spells the End of Fair Elections It also nullifies on the most important pieces of civil rights legislation in U.S. History

The part of the Voting Rights Act that the court held unconstitutional (Section 4) was a critical one: the formula that specifies which particular states and localities must clear significant voting changes in advance with the Justice Department. That process – “pre-clearance” – ensures that unfair voting rules can be stopped before they are allowed to interfere with actual elections.
An example of why it’s needed: in 2001, the all-white leadership of Kilmichael, Miss. abruptly cancelled the town election when it looked like voters might elect the first black mayor. Using the Voting Rights Act, the Justice Department required that the election go forward – and a black mayor was elected. That was only one of more than 700 discriminatory voting changes the Justice Department blocked from 1982 to 2006.

Justice Roberts cynically opines that the Congress is free to set new conditions, presumably more in tune with today's world. The reality is that in today's increasingly polarized congress, any such agreement will be near impossible.

Republicans know that they are in danger when too many people vote. Many say that Voter ID laws unfairly hurt the poor. 11% of Americans lack such identification. Last year the Brennan Center for Justice published a study that shows how such laws disproportionally affect the poor, elderly and minorities.

It is funny that southern conservative voices have trumpeted the end of discrimination in their communities today while their black peers in the same districts are clearly worried. Which side is right?

Justice Ginsburg is also worried. From her dissent today:

"The Court does not contest that Alabama’s history of racial discrim­ination provides a sufficient basis for Congress to require Alabama and its political subdivisions to preclear electoral changes. Nevertheless, the Court asserts that Shelby County may prevail on its facial chal­lenge to [Section Four’s] coverage formula because it is subject to [Section Five’s] preclearance requirement by virtue of that formula. …This misses the reality that Congress decided to subject Alabama to preclearance based on evidence of continuing constitutional violations in that State.”

I wish that I was as optimistic as some that we had surmounted the forces of racism and bigotry that have long impacted our nation. I am not. They clearly continue today. Justice Roberts and his cohorts have torn down the last wall that protects the fox from the henhouse. It will be interesting to see what new methods evolve in the areas of both voter suppression and redistricting. You really think that things have changed?

Is the south more racist than the north? This current study from UC Davis says yes, yes it is. (You will need to link to the pdf to read the paper.)

Selma

Thanks, bro!

From Huffpo:

6.24.13

Was Michael Hastings the victim of a car hack? From HuffPo:

"There is reason to believe that intelligence agencies for major powers" -- including the United States -- know how to remotely seize control of a car."
Former U.S. National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-terrorism Richard Clarke

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Senators Wyden and Udall write General Alexander a letter, which questions his veracity in regards to NSA's Section 702 Fact Sheet Inaccuracy. But it is illegal for them to get specific. So much for transparency.

Wyden and Udall Letter to General Alexander on NSA's Section 702 Fact Sheet Inaccuracy by Senator Ron Wyden

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Interesting to see how many "liberal" journalists are carrying water for the establishment regarding the Snowden disclosures. I was reading from Edward Bernays 1928 book Propaganda yesterday and found this quote:

“But being dependent, every day of the year and for year after year, upon certain politicians for news, the newspaper reporters are obliged to work in harmony with their news sources.” 

Bernays (1891-1995) was Sigmund Freud's nephew.

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"In the emergency room they have what’s called rape kits, where a woman can get cleaned out," said state Rep. Jodie Laubenberg (R), sponsor of the controversial SB 5, according to The Associated Press.

Texas has just approved the most draconian abortion policy in the nation. This woman has just showed the world the breadth of her ignorance, the function of rape kits is to provide evidence of a rape, not "clean a woman out."

Not to be outdone, Texas wacko congressman Louie Gohmert says that sex education programs are straight out of Soviet Russia. What he doesn't get is that the highest national rates of teen pregnancy are in the red states, obviously the parents aren't doing too good of a job either.

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Poor George Zimmer. I liked the guy, he had the huevos to stand up for decriminalization. Don't think that I will buy another thing from Men's Warehouse.

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Clarence Thomas is whining about Affirmative Action. He actually compared it to slavery today in his opinion. Which is rich, because the program allowed him to enter Yale Law School and to subsequently get a job clerking for John Danforth, and finally sit on the nation's highest court. He said that he still couldn't get the good jobs like the white kids when he left school but it looks like he has done all right to me. But he makes a good argument actually. He has been an abysmal justice, mute for the last eight years, bitter, with a king sized chip on his shoulder, or is it a can of coca cola? He is a total embarrassment who should be grateful that he was given an opportunity and now wants to deny others of his race the same opportunity he got.

And I guess that Justice Alito has been a complete dick.

Bill Bruford and Annette Peacock

Hail the Coming Singularity!

I sent BigDave a link from Extremetech for these nifty new bionic eyeballs this morning, Wireless, solar-powered bionic eyes benefit from sub-retinal placement. Pop a wireless visual processor into a small pocket created in the retina and presto! Sight.

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I got some weird response from Dave invoking the coming singularity. I try to stay on top of these things and admit to being a little fuzzy on the subject.  I forget, what the hell is this singularity business again?

Dave sent me this handy little singularity tracker, The above graphic is a partial screenshot of a constantly upgrading link that counts down to the infernal/blessed event. Check out the link and see if it makes any sense to you. Here is the verbiage from the website:

What is the singularity?

     The concept of 'the singularity' is somewhat loosely defined, but most people agree that it means a point in our future when the rate of technological and intellectual progress becomes unimaginably fast.  It is based on the observation that many things in our society become increasingly more sophisticated, faster and faster, as we build better tools to make the whole process even faster. 

     One of the main predictions people make about the singularity is that it will be driven by artificial intelligence that is self-improving.  People think this, not because artificial intelligence is so easy to create, but rather, because of one very convincing argument:  If artificial intelligence could surpass human intelligence only slightly, it could create other forms of artificial intelligence by itself, and give them the ability to self improve.  This would lead to a very sudden and rapid improvement in all forms of automation. 

     The word singularity in this context is borrowed from mathematics and physics, where it usually means a point so extreme, that the currently understood rules fail to explain what will happen at this point.  This word is appropriate because if the future is anything like some people are predicting, the singularity will represent a fundamental change in humanity. 

When will the singularity happen?

    It could never happen, as many of the advancements necessary for the singularity are rather speculative and rely on solutions to problems we haven't found yet.  Still, some are optimistic that we will not only solve these problems, but soar past them.  There is probably no one more optimistic than futurist Ray Kurzweil who has set a date of 2045 for the singularity, and written prolifically on the subject. 

A point in the future when the rate of technological and intellectual progress becomes unimaginably fast? That doesn't sound very scientific. Your imagination or my imagination? There is a difference.

Artificial intelligence that is self improving? Hello, Blade Runner... Time to watch those pesky robots again. The aforelinked website's computing section lists some pretty cool advances that you might want to check out but I must admit I am a bit agnostic about the whole proposition.

You see, these sort of predictions come around every couple years and never add up to a hill of beans. In the 70's we had Kohoutek, remember? Then Y2K, the Mayan end of the world crap, thanks Terrence McKenna, that really helped your credibility, people peddle so much of this twaddle with a straight face. Writer Ray Kurzweil is apparently responsible for this one.

The following graph is the kind of mumbo jumbo that really floors me. When the great nonbiological intelligence spreads like the master controller in TRON. Wow, epoch 6. The universe finally wakes up and I blew it and slept in.

There are distinct singularity conceptions floating around and apparently Kurzweil's is not the most optimistic, Vinge's is. From Wiki:

The technological singularity is the theoretical emergence of superintelligence through technological means. Since it is believed that the capabilities of such intelligence would be difficult for an unaided human mind to comprehend, the technological singularity is often seen as an occurrence, akin to a singularity, beyond which events cannot be predicted, yet many have made educated guesses about what will follow.
The first use of the term "singularity" in this context was by mathematician John von Neumann. Neumann in the mid-1950s spoke of "ever accelerating progress of technology and changes in the mode of human life, which gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue". The term was popularized by science fiction writer Vernor Vinge, who argues that artificial intelligence, human biological enhancement, or brain-computer interfaces could be possible causes of the singularity. Futurist Ray Kurzweil cited von Neumann's use of the term in a foreword to von Neumann's classic The Computer and the Brain.
Proponents of the singularity typically postulate an "intelligence explosion", where superintelligences design successive generations of increasingly powerful minds, that might occur very quickly and might not stop until the agent's cognitive abilities greatly surpass that of any human.
Kurzweil predicts the singularity to occur around 2045 whereas Vinge predicts some time before 2030. At the 2012 Singularity Summit, Stuart Armstrong did a study of artificial generalized intelligence (AGI) predictions by experts and found a wide range of predicted dates, with a median value of 2040. His own prediction on reviewing the data is that there's an 80% probability that the singularity will occur in a range of 5 to 100 years.

5 to 100 years? Wake me up when it gets here.  But don't get too hung up on the technological singularity, because you puny humans might want to be aware of the gravitational singularity as well, where the quantities that are used to measure the gravitational field become infinite in a way that does not depend on the coordinate system. These quantities are the curves of space and time and my god, this stuff really makes my head hurt. Of course there is also the mathematical singularity to contend with. If you can figure it out and explain it to me without giving me a migraine, be my guest.

This singularity stuff is apparently quite the little cottage industry. We now have Singularity University, the Singularity Hub, not to mention the Singularity game. Can you say, let's cash in, boys and girls?

I know. If any of us make it to 2045 and the machines haven't supplanted us yet and driven us into a life of thrall like bondage, we will toast the whole notion of cyborg superior. I will tell my nastiest dirty joke and if I can get the robot to crack a real smile and genuinely laugh I will take my hat off to our new mechanical overlords and say have at it. After all, we humans have not set the bar very high. How much worse could the machines really do?

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Why plants are smarter than we are. One day they can fight it out with the machines.

Big Oak Estate Sale

I am doing my first estate sale ever this weekend, in partnership with my friend Kim DiNardo.

It is a very cool house on the Big Oak Ranch, site of  one of the largest and most famous oaks around. House is full of great stuff, in all price ranges.

Check out the link here and here for more information. Hope to see you there.

Sale starts at 9 friday. The address is 1045 Big Oak Ranch Rd.

Limited parking at the end of Silver Spring or walk up from Mission. Do not block driveways. Please be courteous.

The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game

Quite a few people have done credible versions of this song, Blondie, Grace Jones, Jerry Garcia among others. Ella does a nice version here. I had assumed that it was written by the Marvelettes, a band that performed the gold standard of the hit, but I was wrong.

It was actually written by Smoky Robinson. Here is the Miracles version. The Marvelettes singer Wanda Young Rogers was in fact married to Miracles member Bobby Rogers.

There's gold in them thar icebergs

photo: Gerard Van der Leun

When the world starts thawing its ice, make frozen daiquiris.

Okay so the arctic is melting. We admit it. Know what it means? There's money to be made! Read this incredibly vapid and shortsighted article by Scott Borgerson at Foreign Affairs, The Coming Arctic Boom As the Ice Melts, the Region Heats Up. Chillingly stupid. Lets not worry about the ramifications of the cataclysmic environmental spiral that we have helped promulgate, let's think about plunder and planting our flag...

"Thanks to global warming, the Arctic icecap is rapidly melting, opening up access to massive natural resources and creating shipping shortcuts that could save billions of dollars a year. But there are currently no clear rules governing this economically and strategically vital region. Unless Washington leads the way toward a multilateral diplomatic solution, the Arctic could descend into armed conflict..."

Bobby Blue Bland

Subject:FBI investigation, re:NSA

Investigative reporter Michael Hastings gets weird vibes that he has run afoul of the Blue Meanies and sends this email out a few hours before his mysterious death in a single car accident. Hmmm.

Christian Domestic Discipline

Your spouse been a little disobedient? Jesus thinks they may need a little paddling.

Check out this article over at the Daily Beast. There's even a Christian BDSM fetish board and this website.

I been real bad, lord...

St Louis Browns

Quotes from Propaganda, 1928

Propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government.

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. ...In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.”

“But being dependent, every day of the year and for year after year, upon certain politicians for news, the newspaper reporters are obliged to work in harmony with their news sources.” 

“It is asked whether, in fact, the leader makes propaganda, or whether propaganda makes the leader. There is a widespread impression that a good press agent can puff up a nobody into a great man. The answer is the same as that made to the old query as to whether the newspaper makes public opinion or whether public opinion makes the newspaper. There has to be fertile ground for the leader and the idea to fall on. But the leader also has to have some vital seed to sow. To use another figure, a mutual need has to exist before either can become positively effective. Propaganda is of no use to the politician unless he has something to say which the public, consciously or unconsciously, wants to hear.” 

“Universal literacy was supposed to educate the common man to control his environment. Once he could read and write he would have a mind fit to rule. So ran the democratic doctrine. But instead of a mind, universal literacy has given him rubber stamps, rubber stamps inked with advertising slogans, with editorials, with published scientific data, with the trivialities of the tabloids and the platitudes of history, but quite innocent of original thought. Each man's rubber stamps are the duplicates of millions of others, so that when those millions are exposed to the same stimuli, all receive identical imprints. It may seem an exaggeration to say that the American public gets most of its ideas in this wholesale fashion. The mechanism by which ideas are disseminated on a large scale is propaganda, in the broad sense of an organized effort to spread a particular belief or doctrine.” 

If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without them knowing it. 

― Edward L. Bernays, Propaganda 

Shady Grove

I was looking for news about my local town on Google News this morning and I ran across this ad from the Union Tribune disguised as news, LAST CHANCE TO OWN AT KB HOME’S SHADY GROVE IN FALLBROOK.

This development is an encapsulation of the absurdity of the American mercantile system. They have been trying to peddle these poor things for years. Kauffman and Broad bought what was actually once a shady grove, mowed it down to bare soil with nary a tree in sight and then marketed the development as Shady Grove. Serious semantical hubris. Shady all right but never quite a fit in a community that is still lucky enough to have a few real shady groves left.

FISA frame up

There is a very interesting exposé in the Washington Post this morning on the makeup of the FISA secret surveillance court, Worth reading. All ten of the current judges appointed by Republicans, six former prosecutors, all handpicked by Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts. No wonder they have such an exemplary "can't miss" record on never turning down a surveillance request.

I have decided that in the face of such awful behavior from both parties that I am going to withdraw my registration from the Democratic party and become some sort of an independent. Parties are meaningless, especially when their candidates campaign one way and then govern in diametric opposition to their supposed convictions. Parties don't matter, issues matter.

Judy Henske

A remastered look at Henske's powerful take on Billie Edd Wheeler's famous coal mining ode. Probably my favorite version from a seriously under rated singer.

High flying bird

The Obama administration and its proxies have been engaged in some seriously bellicose sabre rattling with Hong Kong this weekend regarding sending Edward Snowden back to face legal retribution and justice. I have just read a single source report, as yet unconfirmed, that the bird has flown the coop to Moscow, on way to a third country, possibly Iceland.

The Obama administration should breathe a hidden sigh of relief that he has not returned. The reality is that most americans, I believe, are more aghast at the exposure of the scope and scale of the ever growing spy state than they are at what some regard as Snowden's treasonous activity. As bad as the leak, many, like me, feel like they owe him a debt of gratitude for lifting the veil.

A public trial would unmask a fault line and schism between establishment figures from both parties and the civil libertarians that would I think be historically divisive. Recent statements from liberals like Pelosi, Feinstein, Franken and Klobuchar in support of the programs are no less noxious than those of Lindsay Graham, Cheney and the figures on the right.

Quickly slap dashed privacy boards, rubber stamping FISA courts and Senate Intelligence committees that muzzle dissenting members have not assuaged the view amongst most of us that we are witnessing a government surveillance state run amok. A fishing operation in which billions of americans personal communications are cast into an ever growing net to harvest in order to connect the dots for a meager handful of terrorist operations seems overly draconian and unnecessary to most clear thinking americans. The cure is simply worse than the disease. We are simply more afraid of "us" than we are of "them."

They recognize what a national dialogue is and what it is not. It is not a mere briefing, it is a decision that every American will personally decide and weigh in on and ultimately have the final say on. An NSA that rummages through our personal data and communications looking for "inadvertent" signs of criminal behavior while operating as a hand maiden for the FBI strikes me as totally un american and contrary to our country's ideals. We have no faith in a government that assures us that they are the "good guys" and promises to police itself. It is precisely at tough times like these when we should redouble our efforts to protect our constitution and bill of rights, not degrade them.

These programs stink, whether they are a creation of Republicans or Democrats. Once again, thank you Edward Snowden for letting us know how bad things really are. While not everybody, certainly many loyal americans believe that we owe you a debt of gratitude.

Sky Reflector- Net

Did anybody see the New York Times article on the new Fulton Street subway station roof last week?

What an architectural marvel, I hope that I can photograph it one day. The roof is comprised of 952 perforated aluminum panels that are suspended on cables. The panels have a varied amount of stippling, creating a gradient affect.

“It’s almost like you’ve taken the whole sky and folded it in." James Carpenter

The roof is called Sky Reflector-Net. Cost a little more than $2 million dollars.

More information can be found here.

A well respected man

It's the water

Tennessee official says that complaining about your water quality can be considered an act of terrorism according to Homeland Security.

Joycelene Johns, 68, has lived in Mount Pleasant off and on for about 30 years and has put up with cloudy, odd-tasting water for years.
"I'll drink it," she said, "but I pray before the first sip."

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In other water news today, the EPA has decided not to finish its fracking study in Wyoming and to leave any further testing to the state. Petroleum industry sycophants are overjoyed and claiming a victory even though  the EPA says that it is sticking by the data and results of the preliminary study which found evidence of methane, ethane, diesel-range organic compounds and phenol in test wells.

The agency said it won’t finalize the report drafted in 2011, nor does it plan to rely on that report’s conclusions. The EPA got involved in the Pavillion area after town residents complained to federal officials and argued that state regulators weren’t acting on their health and water complaints.

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Reports today that workers have found a new radioactive leak at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington.

A review by the Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative agency, blamed the Department of Energy for building the plant before the design process was complete. As a result, parts of the facility "may not work and may not meet nuclear safety standards," the report said.
The report was also critical of the Bechtel Corporation, the contractor in charge of the project. "The scheduled completion date has slipped by nearly a decade to 2019," it said.
The cleanup effort — with a price tag of about $2 billion annually — has cost taxpayers $40 billion to date, and is estimated will cost $115 billion more.

Cupa

Did you see the fascinating story on the Pala Indian tribe in the San Diego Reader a few weeks back concerning disenrollment? It is titled Can you find the big secret in this casino? and is worth a read. A study of the corrosive and destructive power of money and what it does to friends and families.

“We have more right [to be members] than any of them. We are the Cupeño Indians. They are the Mexicans and the outsiders. The United States government has allowed a bunch of Yaqui Indians and a bunch of Cahuillas to come in and take over our tribe.”

The Reader published an interesting rebuttal from Tribal Chairman Robert Smith last week. The whole thing just stinks to hell. Looks like in the end, with help from the United States government, the Luiseños gave the Cupeños a good screwing.

Viking

Old and Busted

When you were a kid, didn't you hate when an old person told you how young they feel? Please grandpa, don't make a muscle again... I found my first white chest hair last week, which makes a nice accompaniment to my new white nose and ear hairs.

The reality is that I was emotionally retarded sometime in the 1970's and never quite grew up. I don't feel old necessarily, merely that I am inhabiting the wrong planet.

I ordered the hot new Lightroom 5 upgrade this week. This Adobe product allows you to utilize some cool new tools, multiple vignetting points, slick content aware brush, etc. I tried to put it on my MacPro desktop 2 x 2.66 GHz Dual - Core Intel Xeon running OS10.6.8 Snow Leopard and it was a no go. The install box said that I must have a minimum of operating system 10.7 Lion to make it work.

Fair enough. I called Mac and ordered Mountain Lion. Sorry sir, the architecture of your "vintage" computer won't run Mountain Lion, better stick with a different breed of cat, Lion. "Vintage," I ask?  The desktop is six years old and has already been relegated to the dustbin of history? Apparently I am pecking around on the modern day equivalent of a Packard.  The twenty something tech apologized for his "verbiage," he nervously coughed and said that that is how they refer to systems that they no longer supply hardware for and I should in no way take it as a sign of my advancing dotage.

I went through a bunch of redemption tsoris and subsequently ordered Lion but it won't load for some reason. A senior level tech says that he has dealt with this issue before and I will need to load Snow Leopard again to get Lion to work and who the hell knows where those discs are so they are expediting me a pair and we will see.

A lot of crap for an upgrade, no?

Moore's Law says that computing power doubles every 18 months or so. I think that there is actually another principle at work here.

It is called built in obsolescence. Set the hook in our mouth and then don't ever let go. My coffee buddy Wild Bill told me that a developer buddy says that this period is constantly shrinking. Computers and software are now built for a three year lifespan window.

They want to keep you in a constant buy cycle. Just look at Adobe and their new creative cloud strategy.

32 bit gives way to 64 bit and it all gives way to a constant drain on your wallet that is fairly insidious.

More and more software programs and hardware systems are quickly becoming unusable. Apple is getting away from the cats for some reason, the next OS will be titled Mavericks. A really maverick idea, ease up on your customers.

Codefellas

Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)

Fillmore East 4/3/1971 Early Show

New pen pal

I admit that at times I may suffer from an over attenuated sense of importance, classic narcissistic personality disorder, whatever. Still I have noticed something rather curious; when I post to the blog, a little star instantly lights up on the feedjit map off the west coast of Africa, pretty much every time. When I move my cursor over it, it says that the location is unknown, the only heart that does not give me a read.

The reason I bring this up is I occasionally wonder if my blog is being monitored by the blue meanies? Not that the information I provide can't be found at a ton of different sources, nothing top secret or proprietary here. Merely a clearinghouse for music, sports, art, politics, what have you...

An associate of mine has a son who is a big time operative in the military and has been stationed in Liberia for the last few. And this crazy notion that ran through my mind was, is it possible that our own data collection is occurring offsite somewhere? Or do I just have an overactive imagination and maybe a new penpal I haven't met someplace off the western African coast?

Ohio