#3 TELL-A-VISION

Freedom of expression and freedom of speech aren't really important unless they're heard...It's hard for me to stay silent when I keep hearing that peace is only attainable through war. And there's nothing more scary than watching ignorance in action. So I dedicated this Emmy to all the people who feel compelled to speak out and not afraid to speak to power and won't shut up and refuse to be silenced. - Tommy Smothers - 200809.21 [Tommy is one of my long time heroes! ;-) You had a dog, and all I got was a chicken! - Tommy to his brother Dick early '60s (-;]

A Real Republican and Honorable General Once Said:

Throughout America's adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among people and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt both at home and abroad. - President Dwight D. Eisenhower - The Military-Industrial Complex

"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the State." Dr. Joseph M. Goebbels

St. Paul Demonstrations

200809.02 - 6:34 AM (St. Paul)

This is gonna have to be a quickie, as I need some protein & it's time to figure out how to get from this hotel to Peace Park for a mellow afternoon of community and music. Had bush and his cheney boss and their brainwashed veteran hating candidate been here, it would have been much worse.

I witnessed Amy Goodman & her crew arrested yesterday. I saw cops refusing medical treatment to handcuffed prisoners bleeding from the face or arms. But that was way after the march. I saw sweating cops wielding batons half my size all too anxious to crack heads.

Veterans For Peace marched proudly behind Iraq Veterans Against the War. Michael McPhearson was awesome as our Field Leadership! Veterans kept tight and disciplined and we did our best to clear non veterans away from our lines and for the most part, it was clear as we marched through town that this demo of over 25,000 people was LED BY U.S. MILITARY VETERANS! IVAW led us in chants and cadence and speaking for myself and perhaps many of the other VFP members with us, it was a very high honor to march behind our brothers and sisters in IVAW.

It is difficult to describe the feeling as thousands of peaceful activists cheered our presence, *loudly*.

We were joined by several WWII vets, one 89 year old youth keeping pace with the ENTIRE march, another accompanied by two nieces and with a wide brimmed hat over his ears so we could never see his face, stayed with us also for the most part.

Our spirit was high. Our message was clear and our intention clearly indicated by our peaceful presence.

I'd guess there were over 300 veterans behind us. We went through the crowd prior to leaving the rally site, several times inviting veterans and their families to march peacefully with us. Many, many did & it was fun to find out where these vets were from and hook them up with contacts from their communities.

But we had very no signup sheets or info to hand out. We'll fix that next time!

For those of you not with us yesterday, you missed an incredible action. In four years I hope we convene in whatever location the next party in power chooses. We must be a presence at all national party conventions!

Peace Out, Rainbow Puddle

Chrome suffers first security flaw

September 3, 2008 7:29 AM PDT
Posted by Robert Vamos

On Wednesday, researchers announced a flaw in how the Google Chrome browser behaves with undefined handlers. An exploit provided as a demonstration crashes the new browser.

In an article on the Securiteam site, Rishi Narang from Evilfingers says a crash can occur without user interaction. If a user is provided a malicious link with an undefined handler followed by a special character, Chrome crashes.

In Google-speak, the browser displays a message "Whoa, Google Chrome has crashed. Restart now?"

Narang found the fault in chrome.dll version 0.2.149.27. More details can be found on this Evilfingers page.

And on Tuesday, mere hours after Chrome was released, researcher Aviv Raff concocted a proof-of-concept demo to show how the Google browser could be made vulnerable to a carpet-bombing flaw and thus open a window for ill-intentioned hackers.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10031250-83.html

Google Backs Down After Being Caught with Prohibitive EULA

By Eric Blair
15:55, September 4th 2008

Apparently Google’s Chrome browser which was released on Tuesday is a good reminder for us to actually read Terms of Service documents and EULAs. Not two hours after its release, bloggers checking out the new browser reported an interesting find in Chrome’s license document. The original text went something like this:

11. Content licence from you

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights that you already hold in Content that you submit, post or display on or through the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content, you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content that you submit, post or display on or through the Services. This licence is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

What is implied here is that any and all content that you create and upload via the Chrome browser instantly become property of Google Inc. This includes email, web-chat text, pictures you upload, etc. Florida lawyer David Loschiavo said in his blog:

"In other words, by posting anything (via Chrome) to your blog(s), any forum, video site, MySpace, iTunes, or any other site that might happen to be supporting you, Google can use your work without paying you a dime (...) It applies to everything you pass through Chrome. Google can take your submitted content and edit and reuse it all they want, as long as they do so in connection with Chrome."

Rebecca Ward, senior product counselor for Chrome made a statement yesterday saying that they borrowed legal language from other products, "in order to keep things simple for our users," and that they “are working quickly to remove language from Section 11 of the current Google Chrome terms of service. This change will apply retroactively to all users who have downloaded Google Chrome”.

The initial text also specified that Google are permitted to "make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services."

As of 2 am Pacific Time yesterday, section 11 of the EULA had changed to read:

11. Content license from you

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.

Was this incident an honest mistake as their mea culpa yesterday states, or were Google trying to get users to give away, as Steven W. Teppler – NY lawyer – put it, “(Intellectual Property), to an organization certainly not in need of charitable donations”?

http://www.efluxmedia.com/...Google_Backs_Down_After_Being_Caught......

Via xlr8yourmac.com - Test Your Browser - V8 Benchmark Suite - version 1

This page contains a suite of pure JavaScript benchmarks that we have used to tune V8. The final score is computed as the geometric mean of the individual results to make it independent of the running times of the individual benchmarks and of a reference system (score 100). Scores are not comparable across benchmark suite versions and higher scores means better performance: Bigger is better!

http://code.google.com/apis/v8/run.html

SARAH PALIN, QUEEN OF THE NOBODIES

by Ted Rall
Thu Sep 4, 7:58 PM ET

Experience is Overrated. What About IQ?

[snip]

Welcome to the year of the nobody, when people you've never heard of can blog or reality-show or, in the case of the political class, schmooze their way to fame and fortune. My favorite nobody of 2008 was a kid named Efraim Diveroli, the fast-talking 22-year-old president of a two-man arms trading outfit by the name of AEY, Inc. (Speaking of thin resumes, his business partner was a masseur by trade.) [Continue Reading At]:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucru/20080904/cm_ucru/sarahpalinqueenofthenobodies

Greetings from "the angry left"
Hey, peeved hippie! Stop your hatin' and learn to love the (McCain) bomb!

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, September 5, 2008

"Fellow citizens, if the Hanoi Hilton could not break John McCain's resolve to do what is best for his country, you can be sure the angry left never will." -- George W. Bush, RNC '08

Aww, just look at you. You seem a little upset. A mite peeved, even.

Heck on a hot pancake, I'd even go so far as to say you were downright angry, given how I can see the ripples of general upsettedness and waves of appalledosity coursing through your hot liberal body like fresh biodiesel through a converted VW van. Really now, that can't be good for your chakras, can it?

What's wrong, buttercup? Right-wing politics got you down? RNC '08 making you gag? Toxic and inexcusable events of the past eight years make you deeply sick to your stomach, spleen, heart, mind, spirit and even your kneecaps? Or is it the wretched notion that the bizarro-world McCain-Palin agenda wants to continue more of the same?

Or maybe it's this: Maybe it's all this terrifying new evidence that there still seems to be this huge pile of Americans who aren't all that concerned with -- or even aware of -- just how violently the GOP continues to dump all over their very heads. Is that what's making your blood boil? Aww, there, there, now.

Really, I have to say, what nerve you libs have, daring to be angry at a time like this. This is a time of optimism and change! This is a time of true, red-blooded American mavericks, of hot Alaskan redneck babes and giant phallic guns and military fetishism and zero birth control, of teen pregnancy and God and freshly slaughtered moose on the dinner table!

Can't you sense the patriotism? Hell, McCain-Palin is so damn American it might as well be a McDonald's McRib sandwich dipped in Crisco and cooked over a Chevy Tahoe's exhaust pipe at a tailgate party in Kid Rock's bowels. Feel the jingoism, hippie!

You know what you should do, angry lefty? You should take a page from the Republican Convention. Just look how perky they all are, doing that incredible dance of the true blind American, completely blocking out the pain and misprision of their party's leadership -- the failed war, the fiscal disaster, the least popular president in a lifetime, the secrecy and scandal and historic ineptitude -- much in the same way an insane cat lady blocks out the all the cold lumps of fur piling up in the freezer. Really, why can't you be more like that?

I'll tell you this, peeved liberal: The GOP is laughing at your expense. Don't you see how they're tossing about "the angry left" catchphrase as though progressives are the only ones who've been molested by Bush's horrible policies and McCain's lust for more war, by illegal wiretapping, torture, environmental ignorance, the raping of the Treasury?

Oh sure, you and I both know there are plenty of angry Republicans out there too, furious at how Bush and now McCain have ruined their once-noble party and trashed the heart of the nation for the sake of oil cronyism and war profiteering. But there is simply no room for them at this particular table.

Right now, you get to be either one of two things: A furious lefty to be equated with North Vietnamese torturers, lured in by the "sham" of Obama's deep intelligence and potential historic greatness, or a deeply drugged conservative, numb to the world, lacking a foothold on a single issue you can defend but nevertheless shooting for the rafters with a giant rifle of gall. Take your pick.

Here's a fun fact: Do you know why Bush and others get to call you "the angry left" and lightning does not strike them dead on the spot? Simple, lovebug: because they know something you don't.

Here it is: Repubs know -- or rather, desperately hope -- that there remains a simply huge number of very ill-informed, reactionary Americans out there who are still operating on the lowest possible intellectual and cultural strata -- who are, for example, totally turned on by seeing Governor Palin in a power skirt wielding a rifle and a knocked-up teen daughter and a fetish for Creationism and oil and sexual ignorance, a woman who has called the war in Iraq "a task from God."

This is McCain's apparent message to these effortlessly terrified throngs (aka "Bush's base"): You know who should be running this country if and when I don't make it through my first term? Hot chicks with guns! Check that: Hot neocon MILFs with guns who can skin a moose and who reject condoms and who don't know a Shia from a Sunni from an Eskimo pie, but who know lots about foreign policy because she can see part of Russia from her desk. Yay America!

So I ask again, why so livid, liberal? Is it because it wasn't exactly "the angry left" who shoved institutionalized torture, pre-emptive military violence, or a complete disregard for science down the throat of American domestic policy? Is it the 4,000-plus dead U.S. soldiers, 10,000-plus wounded and brain-damaged, and tens of thousands of dead Iraqi civilians? Oh, you bleeding heart. So silly you are.

But don't you worry, because there's an even bigger secret looming that the right wing can't really mention right now. See, much as they want to sling "angry left" around and hope it sticks, there's simply no getting over the fact that, despite how it will take the Obama administration many years to repair the incredible damage Hurricane Bush hath wrought, most of us on the left are actually feeling pretty damn good these days. Happy, even.

See, we know the tide has turned. The Bush Dark Days are nearly over. The Obama groundswell is historic, extraordinary, unstoppable. The GOP had its turn, was handed six years of unprecedented, unchecked power, and very nearly destroyed the country. Even Republican leaders now openly admit their party is a mess, shattered and gutted by Bush, will take years and decades to restore to something resembling dignity. And McCain/Palin? An aberration, one of the most disquieting quasi-conservative tickets to ever give a nation the creeps.

So then, trust me when I say, try as they might, "the angry left" won't stick. As anyone with the slightest sense of history and poetic justice knows, such a jab is merely the final, desperate wailings of the bankrupt, the shameful, and the doomed.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/09/05/notes090508.DTL

WARNING: UNWISE GOP SAYING AFLOAT
Do Not Allow Children To Apply Lipstick To Pitbulls!
A bitch pitbull will Not turn into a Mom and You may get severely Bitten.

He Is A Governor, But Can He Act Like One?

Prison guards move to recall Schwarzenegger
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/09/08/MNL512Q96A.DTL

If we don't have a clear vision of the military, if we don't stop extending our troops all around the world and nation building missions, then we're going to have a serious problem coming down the road, and I'm going to prevent that. - October 3, 2000 - George W. Bush - Liar

I Have A Honorable Discharge and Have Something To Say:
Never Use Gestapo Tactics on U.S. Veterans Seeking Peace!
Corporate Media Sucks
Elite Republicans and Limp Democrats Created This United States Mess!
Corporate Media Sucks
Chickenhawk George Was AWOL and Nobody Cared!
Corporate Media Sucks
Vice Deferment Dick Refused to Serve and Nobody Cared!
Corporate Media Sucks
Daddy McCain Covered Up Hot Dog John's USS Forrestal Cook-Out that Killed and Wounded Hundreds of Innocent US Navy Service People!
Corporate Media Sucks
Republicans and Democrats Support Selective Terrorism Against United States Military! Remember the USS Liberty!
Corporate Media Sucks

RETRACTION:
John McCain Crashed Five Warplanes, Not Three

by Jake, the Champion of the Constitution
(Libertarian)
Monday, September 1, 2008

I want to give John McCain a little something special just before his nomination at the Republican convention. First I wrote about a little known event in 1967 where Israel deliberately attacked an American Navy ship, the USS Liberty, wounding or killing 70% of its crew here. Senator McCain's father helped the White House cover it up.

Second I reviewed again why he may not be constitutionally eligible to be president here.

Thirdly, I want to print a retraction as further research into an article of mine falsely claimed that McCain crashed two (2) Navy warplanes during peacetime and one (1) during Vietnam. It appears the truth is he crashed four (3) Navy warplanes during peacetime and two (2) during Vietnam. If I am incorrect, please let me know. Here is the source:

McCain, the "below par" pilot, eventually lost 5 military aircraft, the first during a training flight in 1958 when he plunged into Corpus Christi Bay while trying to land. The Navy ignored the crash and graduated McCain in 1960.

While deployed in the Mediterranean, the hard partying McCain lost a second aircraft. Timberg described the crash: "Flying too low over the Iberian Peninsula, he took out some power lines which led to a spate of newspaper stories in which he was predictably identified as the son of an admiral..."

Flight instructor McCain lost a third aircraft while flying a Navy trainer solo to Philadelphia for an Army-Navy football game. Timberg wrote that McCain radioed, "I've got a flameout" before ejecting at one thousand feet. McCain parachuted onto a beach moments before his plane slammed into a clump of trees.

The Navy dismissed the crash as "unavoidable" and assigned McCain to the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal in December 1966, which was patrolling the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean. In Spring 1967, the Forrestal was assigned to join the Operation Rolling Thunder bombing campaign against North Vietnam.

McCain lost his fourth plane on board the Forrestal on July 29, 1967 when a rocket inadvertently slammed into his bomb laden jet. McCain escaped, but the explosions that followed killed 134 sailors. McCain was transferred from the badly damaged Forrestal to the USS Oriskany. Shortly afterwards, on Oct. 26, 1967, he was shot down and captured by the Vietnamese.

Here is another article from the same website about the potential for PTSD and McCain's suicide attempt while in Vietnamese custody.

Lastly, an article entitled "Be Afraid of President McCain" from Matt Welch, Los Angeles Times assistant editorial page editor. I have been unable to verify all of his facts, but check it out for yourself or read the entire article pasted in below.

Real republicans, constitutionalists and libertarians are joining forces at
www.CampaignForLiberty.com.

In Liberty,
Jake, the Champion of the Constitution
http://www.nolanchart.com/article4679.html

Is Congress An [Illegal] "GANG" Under S.155?

[Note: This article is from Friday, June 23, 2006 and may be indicative of, "Be careful what you wish/vote for."]

Sigmund Freud famously asked, "What does woman want?" He also famously asserted that "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

Downsize DC not-so-famously asks, "Is Congress a gang, and does it need to be abated?"

And we not-so-assertively assert that "Sometimes Congress could be a gang, depending on the future use and misuse made of Senate bill 155 -- the Gang Abatement and Prevention Act." And so could your motorcycle club, your chess club, your rose growing league, and potentially any association under the sun, including Downsize DC.

It all depends on what the meaning of is, is. Sigmund Freud's use of the word "sometimes" would seem to suggest that sometimes he thought a cigar was not just a cigar (Bill Clinton probably agrees), and Congress's historical relationship to the Constitutional words "Congress shall make no law," would seem to suggest that sometimes a club, or association, could also be a gang.

The definition of "gang" could depend on the answer to the question, "What does Congress want?" Congress clearly wants to have a "living Constitution" that can have any meaning at any time, with no actual words ever being changed. And they may also want a "living S. 155" so that any group could be labeled a gang, if the Feds felt a need to abate or prevent that group.

S. 155 is the brainchild of Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein of California. This bill has many different versions, under many different names. It seems to mutate faster than the HIV virus. It also, like most Congressional bills, shows a tendency toward promiscuity. It could be joined with another bill, with a different subject, at any time. And a major disease could result.

S. 155 would make it a crime to belong to a group, or to recruit members to that group, as long as that group is called a gang. S. 155 would also do all sorts of other things, many of which are unknown to us because the bill is long, and we haven't had time to read it yet. WE ONLY JUST LEARNED ABOUT THIS BILL FROM SECRET INFORMERS LAST NIGHT! But remember, Congress won't read S. 155 either, before they attach it to "The Sweetness and Light and Everything Good Act" in the dead of night, and rush it to a vote.

Indeed, the gang known as the Senate Judiciary Committee is having a secret conspiratorial meeting (otherwise known as an executive session) right now, to consider S. 155. And rumor has it that they may join S. 155 to some kind of "we hate sex offenders" bill that no one will dare to vote against. There are so many things wrong with all of this ...

• Neither gang abatement nor sex offenses are the business of the federal government.
• Criminal law is a state function, under our Constitution, not a federal function.
• The Judiciary Committee should not meet in secret.
• Bills should not be attached to other bills.
• Bills should be available to the public for at least a week before a vote is held.
• Laws should not engage in prior restraint, or criminalize free association.
• Laws should not be vague, leaving the concrete details to bureaucratic discretion.

But there's more. S. 155 has all the makings of another RICO Act. RICO is the law that, among other things, allows the government to charge your property with a crime, and seize it under a civil procedure with lax standards of evidence. Do we really need another RICO Act?

In the movie "Little Caesar," the gang leader Rico, played by Edward G. Robinson, is shot down. As he lays dying he asks the great existential question, "Is this the end of Rico?" The answer is yes. Rico dies. The RICO Act, and all its clones, like S. 155, should suffer the same fate. Congress should not deal with lawless gangs by becoming a lawless gang. But that's exactly what they're doing. And the time is short to thwart this criminal conspiracy ...

We don't have time to mount one of our standard Electronic Advocacy campaigns. Phone calls are needed. Make the Senate Judiciary Gang nervous. If you see one of your Senators on the Gang Roster below, call them and tell them to oppose S. 155 and all its variants. If your Senator is not on this list then call the Senate Judiciary Gang Leader, Arlen Specter, and tell him to stop S. 155.

Please do so now. It will be fun, and it will only take a minute. Here's the list of gang members ...

Arlen Specter - CHAIRMAN, PENNSYLVANIA - 202-224-4254
Orrin G. Hatch - UTAH - 202-224-5251
Patrick J. Leahy - VERMONT - 202-224-4242
Charles E. Grassley - IOWA - 202-224-3744
Edward M. Kennedy - MASSACHUSETTS - 202-224-4543
Jon Kyl - ARIZONA - 202-224-4521
Joseph R. Biden, Jr. - DELAWARE - 202-224-5042
Mike DeWine - OHIO - 202-224-2315
Herbert Kohl - WISCONSIN - 202-224-5653
Jeff Sessions - ALABAMA - 202-224-4124
Dianne Feinstein - CALIFORNIA - 202-224-3841
Lindsey Graham - SOUTH CAROLINA - 202-224-5972
Russell D. Feingold - WISCONSIN - 202-224-5323
John Cornyn - TEXAS - 202-224-2934
Charles E. Schumer - NEW YORK - 202-224-6542
Sam Brownback - KANSAS - 202-224-6521
Richard J. Durbin - ILLINOIS - 202-224-2152
Tom Coburn - OKLAHOMA - 202-224-5754

Source: http://www.freemarketnews.com/Analysis/64/5430/2006-06-23.asp?wid=64&nid=5430

Addendum: All information related to S.155 is located here:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:s.00155:

Source feed: http://www.flyingsnail.com/Sprung/sprungalert002.html

1. Be a Fundamentalist -- make sure the Fun always comes before the mental. Realize that life is a situation comedy that will never be canceled. A laugh track has been provided, and the reason why we are put in the material world is to get more material. Have a good laughsitive twice a day, and that will ensure regularhilarity.

2. Remember that each of us has been given a special gift, just for entering - so you are already a winner!

3. The most powerful tool on the planet today is Tell-A-Vision. That is where I tell a vision to you, and you tell a vision to me. That way, if we don't like the programming we're getting, we can simply change the channel.

4. Life is like photography. You use the negative to develop.

5. It is true. As we go through life thinking heavy thoughts, thought particles tend to get caught between the ears, causing a condition called truth decay. So be sure to use mental floss twice a day. And when you're tempted to practice tantrum yoga, remember what we teach in Swami's Absurdiveness Training class: *Don't get even, get odd.*

6. If we want world peace, we must let go of our attachments and truly live like nomads. That's where I no mad at you, you no mad at me. That way, there'll surely be nomadness on the planet. And peace begins with each of us. A little peace here, a little peace there, pretty soon all the peaces will fit together to make one big peace everywhere.

7. I know great earth changes have been predicted for the future, so if you're looking to avoid earthquakes, my advice is simple. When you find a fault, just don't dwell on it.

8. There's no need to change the world. All we have to do is toilet train the world, and we'll never have to change it again.

9. If you're looking to find the key to the Universe, I have some bad news and some good news. The bad news is: there is no key to the Universe. The good news is: it has been left unlocked.

10. Finally, everything I have told you is channeled. That way, if you don't like it, it's not my fault. And remember, enlightenment is not a bureaucracy. So we don't have to go through channels.

Nobody Says: Conservative Compassion Has Turned Into Conservative "Unworthy, Mean, Arrogant" Elitism!

Is this my last weekend ever?
I don't really believe I'm about to disappear down Cern's black hole.
But ... what if?

by Leo Hickman
guardian.co.uk, Sunday September 07 2008 13:00 BST

So, this is it then. This could be our very last weekend. For all of us. Next Wednesday, we will all disappear down a black hole. Humanity will cease. The Earth will cease. The solar system will cease. Well, not in its current form or dimension, anyway.

Even though the atom-smashing physicists at the CERN mega-laboratory in Switzerland who are preparing to crank up the most audacious and expensive experiment in history insist that the chances of anything going wrong are "infinitesimally small", there is still a small band of doubters out there who fear the worst . But despite their best efforts – which include two failed legal challenges - to avert what they believe will be a galactic catastrophe triggered by the experiment, the big lever will nonetheless be pulled on Wednesday and the atom smashing will commence.

For people such as me, who struggled to understand the back cover of A Brief History of Time and therefore don't know my Higgs bosons from my gluons, it's time to take a giant leap of faith. We have to accept that this expert band of physicists gathered from around the world know exactly what they are doing. I'm extremely confident they do – they've double, triple checked their calculations, right? – but there's still a teeny part of me that wonders, what if?

If the thought of the Large Hadron Collider being fired up on Wednesday for the first time leaves you, albeit irrationally, a tad unsettled, too, then wonder what it will be like for those real doubters over the next few days. What do you do when you have a firm appointment in your diary that simply says "End of World"?

Personally, I think I would have a to-do list prepared. Dave Freeman, the co-author of the best-selling "100 Things to Do Before You Die", recently died aged 47 following a fall at his home in California. But, despite his early death, he had already completed half of the things on his list, including running with the bulls in Pamplona. He was the definitive "man with a plan". I like that attitude.

But there would be little point in putting too many fanciful things on your list, such as "skydiving from 15,000ft" or "swimming with dolphins". Let's just run through some of the things that would happen if a date was announced for the end of the world, say, because an asteroid was heading our way and couldn't be stopped, even by a select group of Hollywood action heroes. All systems and services would surely fail within a matter of hours. After all, who's going to bother going to work upon being told such dramatic news, especially if it's imminent?

I'm torn between thinking that we would all run around screaming and looting, or simply be becalmed by the news and enter into a collective group hug. If history has taught us anything, it would suggest that the former is far more likely, but then again what's the point of smashing the windows of an electronics store and stealing a 42" plasma screen television, if you have just a few days left? Is watching reruns of Only Fools and Horses, or playing Mario Kart Wii (10), really the best use of your time? Most of us, once realising the game was up, would probably retreat to our homes and do things such as flick through our photo albums, listen to favourite albums, and comfort eat our way through whatever food was available. After all, who's going to be worrying about calories?

In fact, just think of those other fleeting benefits – no worrying about a recession, no worrying about climate change, and no worrying about coming up with a witty Facebook status update every few hours. And think, too, of all those things we'd never know the answer to: would Obama have defeated McCain? Which cabinet member started the revolt against Gordon Brown? Where was Bin Laden hiding? Would Liverpool have ever won the Premiership? Who would have won Big Brother? (Actually, I'm prepared to be vaporised without knowing the answer to this one, but it does raise an intriguing issue: should we tell the people in the Big Brother house about the bad news, or leave them in blissful ignorance?)

And then there's the ultimate unanswered question: does God exist? How would religion fit into this end-of-the-world scenario? (Presumably, the Rapturists would be thrilled?) Would people flock to their nearest church, mosque, synagogue or temple seeking salvation? Or would people feel abandoned by their god(s)?

But I feel there's a more compelling question: what do you do when you wake up bleary eyed on Thursday and everything is still there? The world has survived, after all. What have all those people in the past done when their end-of-the-world predictions haven't, in fact, proved to be true? Are they pleased, depressed, or do they just feel a little bit silly? I've been asked on a number of occasions how I would feel if climate change, for example, was proved somehow to be false. Bloody relieved is the honest answer. But, as with what's about to take place at CERN, I trust that the thousands of scientists involved have reached a sensible conclusion about the likely threat to humanity.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/07/cern.physics

Lake County Blues Allstars
Saw Shop - Kelseyville, CA - September 11 - 6:30-9:30 PM

Jim Williams - Neon - Mike Wilhelm

03 October 2000

If we don't have a clear vision of the military, if we don't stop extending our troops all around the world and nation building missions, then we're going to have a serious problem coming down the road, and I'm going to prevent that. - October 3, 2000 - George W. Bush - Chickenhawk

06 August 2001
9/11 cOmmission - 18 Months Later

BEN-VENISTE: Isn't it a fact, Dr. Rice, that the August 6 [2001] PDB warned against possible attacks in this country? And I ask you whether you recall the title of that PDB?

RICE: I believe the title was, "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States ...WTC ...using planes..."

Martin Rowson
THEY Knew About the Attack In Advance, Realized It Fit Into the NEOCON PLAN and Did NOTHING About It!

29 August 2001

Someday someone will die and the public will not understand why we were not more effective and throwing every resource we had at certain problems.

FBI agent's e-mail response to headquarters
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/knew/could

11 September 2001

http://911exposed.org/BBC.htm
Video - http://911exposed.org/BBC_files/barak-bbc.mpeg

BBC Ehud Barak 9/11 Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hhiJanLm7g

Four 9/11 Moms Battle Bush
NY Observer by Gail Sheehy - from Dahbud Mensch's 2003 Archive

"Go massive ... Sweep it all up. Things related and not."
Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld hours after 9/11 attack
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/09/04/september11/main520830.shtml


Bush says, "I am truly not that concerned about him." [bin Laden].
THE BUSH AND BIN LADEN FAMILIES ARE FRIENDS
The Above In Flash Video Format:
http://www.flyingsnail.com/Dahbud/BOQ.html
Music & Vocal by John McCutcheon - Empty WORDS by George W. Bush

The Scooter Libby verdict is inextricably linked to Iraq: his lies were an attempt to cover up the disingenuous case for war. - Sidney Blumenthal

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/sidney_blumenthal/2007/03/scooter_libby_1.html

Why should we hear about body bags and deaths and how many, what day it's gonna happen? It's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that? - Barbara [Heartless POS] Bush, 3/18/2003

EXPOSED: Bush Planned on Invading Iraq Before 9/11-Part 1

EXPOSED: Bush Planned on Invading Iraq Before 9/11-Part 2

Republicans and Democrats are Lying Hypocrites Who Support Selective Terrorism Against U.S. Military

http://www.ussliberty.org/chapter6.htm

http://www.ussliberty.org/g/libmemorial.gif
Remember the U.S.S. Liberty
34 U.S. Military Dead, 171 Wounded
http://www.ussliberty.org/

Your enemy is not surrounding your country
your enemy is ruling your country
by Balz

Year after year, George W. Bush has gone to elaborate lengths, spent enormous sums of money, taken great risks to build and keep weapons of mass destruction. But why? The only possible explanation, the only possible use he could have for those weapons, is to dominate, intimidate, or attack.

With nuclear arms or a full arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, George W. Bush could resume his ambitions of conquest in the Middle East and create deadly havoc in that region. And this Congress and the America people must recognize another threat. Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by Scooter Libby and others facing indictment reveal that George W. Bush aids and protects terrorists, including Neocons Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Scott McClellan, et. al. Secretly, and without fingerprints, he could create another 9/11, provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own.

Before September the 11th, many in the world believed that George W. Bush could be contained. But chemical agents, lethal viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained. Imagine those Neocon hijackers with other weapons and other plans -- this time armed by George W. Bush. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known. We will do everything in our power to make sure that that day never comes. (Applause.)

Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of George W. Bush is not a strategy, and it is not an option. (Applause.)

The dictator who is assembling the world's most dangerous weapons has already used them on whole villages (Shock, Awe, and MK77) -- leaving thousands of Iraqi citizens dead, blind, or disfigured. Iraqi refugees tell us how forced confessions are obtained -- by torturing children while their parents are made to watch. International human rights groups have catalogued other methods used in the torture chambers of Iraq: electric shock, burning with hot irons, dripping acid on the skin, mutilation with electric drills, cutting out tongues, and rape. If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning. (Applause.)

And tonight I have a message for the brave and oppressed people of the United States: Your enemy is not surrounding your country -- your enemy is ruling your country. (Applause.) And the day he and his regime are removed from power will be the day of your liberation. (Applause.)

Lake County Blues Allstars
Blue Wing - Upper Lake, CA - September 15 - 6-9 PM

Powerful gamma-ray burst was aimed at Earth

A powerful gamma-ray burst detected earlier this year that created an afterglow briefly visible to the naked eye was aimed almost directly towards the Earth, scientists said this week. The burst, GRB 080319B, took place on March 19th and was detected by NASA's Swift spacecraft and several other satellites, and produced an optical afterglow that reached magnitude 5.3, despite being 7.5 billion light-years away. Scientists analyzing space- and ground-based observations found that the bursts's brightness came from a central narrow jet consisting of material traveling at 99.99995 percent the speed of light, aimed almost directly towards the Earth. Astronomers said they normally only see a wider, somewhat less energetic jet from such bursts, and don't know if all GRBs have a such a narrow, intense central jet.

http://www.spacetoday.net/Summary/4315

Cloud 9 at 70 plus

Andreas Dresen talks to Birgit Glombizta about geriatric love and sex, and his new film "Wolke 9"

taz: Herr Dresen, are things more ecstatic on "Cloud 9" than on the usual [according to German idiom] cloud 7?

Andreas Dresen: I think so, yes. People are older, their feelings are more intense, they fly a bit higher in their passion. Perhaps they're asking themselves how often they will experience this again? On the other hand it also means they have further to fall.

The title of your film comes from John Lennon's song "Nobody loves you".

It's from one of my favourite John Lennon albums, "Walls and Bridges" which has accompanied me since my youth. That was where I first came across the expression "cloud 9". It creates a crazy image when you translate it into German. I always thought it would make a good name for a film. I just never had a film to fit it. When we were chewing over this project we had a string of idiotic working titles like "love in old age". Then I remembered "cloud 9"

Is "Cloud 9" also meant as a little educational film for all those who think that people in their 70s should be in the geriatric ward rather than having sex? [Continue Reading]

Large Hadron Collider's Hacker Infiltration Highlights Vulnerabilities

By Brandon Keim

Though the Large Hadron Collider's infiltration by hackers did not disrupt the $6 billion project, experts warn that its computer systems are vulnerable -- though at least their exploitation won't destroy Earth.

Shortly after physicists activated the Collider on Wednesday, hackers identifying themselves as Group 2600 of the Greek Security Team accessed computers connected to the Compact Muon Solenoid detector, one of four key subsystems responsible for monitoring the collisions of protons speeding around the 18-mile track near Geneva, Switzerland.

A few scientists had worried that the experiment could inadvertently create a planet-swallowing black hole. Physicists called this impossible, or at least extraordinarily unlikely. But the hack raises a different sort of worst-case scenario: the largest and most complicated science experiment in history, intended to reveal basic information about the composition of matter, derailed by malevolent intruders. [Continue Reading]

Pitbulls, Pigs & Stinky Fish...
Must be a presidential election year

by Fran

"You can put lipstick on a pig," he said to an outbreak of laughter, shouts and raucous applause from his audience, clearly drawing a connection to Palin's joke. "It's still a pig. You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It's still going to stink after eight years."

McCain's campaign immediately organized a telephone conference call in response and called on Obama to apologize for calling Palin a pig. Obama's campaign said he wasn't referring to Palin; he had been talking about McCain immediately before the lipstick comment.

http://sirenschronicles.com/2008/09/10/pitbulls-pigs-stinky-fish/ - and - dizzy dayz blog

Steve Bell
Sarah Palin Photos
Vote for the best (unknown) photo

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