When depression is stigmatized as illness and weakness, a double bind is created: If we admit to depression, we will be stigmatized by others; if we feel it but do not admit it, we stigmatize ourselves, internalizing the social judgment?. The only remaining choice may be truly sick behavior: to experience no emotion at all.

- Lesley Hazelton

Main Entry: de·pres·sion

Pronunciation: di-’pre-sh&n, dE-

Function: noun

Date: 14th century

1 a : the angular distance of a celestial object below the horizon b : the size of an angle of depression

2 : an act of depressing or a state of being depressed : as a : a pressing down : LOWERING b (1) : a state of feeling sad : DEJECTION (2) : a psychoneurotic or psychotic disorder marked especially by sadness, inactivity, difficulty in thinking and concentration, a significant increase or decrease in appetite and time spent sleeping, feelings of dejection and hopelessness, and sometimes suicidal tendencies c (1) : a reduction in activity, amount, quality, or force (2) : a lowering of vitality or functional activity

3 : a depressed place or part : HOLLOW

4 : LOW 1b

5 : a period of low general economic activity marked especially by rising levels of unemployment

Geez, if I could get through to you, kiddo, that depression is not sobbing and crying and giving vent, it is plain and simple reduction of feeling. Reduction, see? Of all feeling. People who keep stiff upper lips find that it?s damn hard to smile.

-The psychiatrist Berger to Conrad Jarrett, in Judith Guest’s Ordinary People

Main Entry: de·pressed

Function: adjective

Date: 1621

1 : low in spirits : SAD; especially : affected by psychological depression

2 a : vertically flattened (a depressed cactus) b : having the central part lower than the margin c : lying flat or prostrate d : dorsoventrally flattened

3 : suffering from economic depression; especially : UNDERPRIVILEGED

4 : being below the standard

Every age yearns for a more beautiful world. The deeper the desperation and the depression about the confusing present, the more intense that yearning.

- Johan Huizinga

And that about does it. How have you been?

I got my CDs from the CD Mix of the Month Club this weekend as well as the new Gomez album In Our Gun. The mixes are pretty good, one of them entitled “Laid Back” is full of, well, laid back music, lots of hippy stuff and a GREAT Dolly Parton cover of Collective Soul’s “Shine” (as my girlfriend noted, she’s such a drag queen that you just have to appreciate her for kitch (sp?) value alone). The other one I didn’t see a title on but it’s from the guy who runs the thing, Josh Benton, and it’s quite good, lots of neat stuff. The Gomez CD kicks more ass than an entire Bruce Lee marathon. Gomez rules.

The Life Cycle of Your Blog

Net radio will pull plug this week to protest fees

Hundreds of Internet radio stations plan to go silent Wednesday to protest proposed record-label royalty payments they say would endanger their industry.

Radio Free Virgin, Stanford University’s KZXU, Choice Radio and KING of Seattle are some of the Web radio services that will take part with either total silence or non-stop public service announcements on the issue.

Setting Fire to Hollywood’s Plans for the Net: The GeekPAC Story

The idea of a Geek Political Action Committee (PAC) to save the Net’s commons from Hollywood is quickly catching fire. And it started right here.

Ala. Jury Trials to Stop Amid Feud

The Constitution guarantees the right to trial by jury, but that isn’t stopping Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore from halting jury trials Monday to save money.

Moore, known for his fights to post the Ten Commandments in public buildings, is now sparring with the governor and Legislature over funding for the courts.

With no resolution in sight, Moore ordered an end to jury hearings in civil court until Oct. 1 and restricted criminal jury trials to two weeks. His decision has forced delays in everything from million-dollar lawsuits to a long-awaited murder trial from a 1963 church bombing.

“It’s going to be devastating,” said Circuit Judge Charles Price, who predicts a rapid backlog.

Sheriffs are worried about jails, many already overcrowded, overflowing with defendants who can’t go to trial. Police fear judges, seeking to relieve the backlog, will reduce bonds for defendants who pose a serious risk to the community. And crime victims are angry about waiting longer for justice. . .

. . . In Alabama, defendants are already filing legal papers saying they are being denied their constitutional right to a speedy trial before a jury.

“Without jury trials, I know of no way these rights can be guaranteed to the public we serve,” Circuit Judge Ferrill McRae said.

It wouldn’t seem that money for trials would be a problem: Appropriations for Alabama’s trial courts have gone up 31 percent since 1998. But part of the increase went to pay raises for judges. Alabama’s Supreme Court justices rank among the highest paid in the country and trial court judges finish near the middle in a state that ranked 44th last year in average annual income, at $23,471, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

The budget fight involves only 2 percent of the state appropriation for the trial courts. The Legislature gave the trial courts $122 million for this fiscal year, but that’s $2.7 million short of what the chief justice and state court administrator Rich Hobson say is necessary.

The Legislature ended is annual session last week without appropriating more.

Legislators argue that the court system hasn’t done enough to cut expenses and hasn’t justified the need for more money.

“It’s wise business that before you appropriate more money, you want to see what they are doing with the money they’ve got and that they are tightening their belts,” said state Sen. Wendell Mitchell, a Democrat and dean of Jones Law School in Montgomery.

Rich Hobson, court administrator for the Republican chief justice, said there’s not much that can be cut because personnel costs take up 94 percent of the budget. In addition to stopping jury trials, the courts are laying off employees and curtailing travel and supplies, he said.

Holy crap on a stick! So, here’s the deal, the justices and other judges are getting yet another pay raise while suspending the Constitutional rights of the citizens of Alabama. Hmmm…. If administrative costs are 94% of that budget, then something’s messed up there.

Anyways, $114.68 million dollars in administrative costs? What kinda system are they running out there? If 94% of the budget goes to the admin people in the judicial system, I’m sure they can cut that back to, oh, 91% and, wow, look at that extra $3.7 million in the coffers!

And I’m sure the loss of a pay increase won’t hurt their pockets more than the law suits their about to face over this deal. Of course, the Chief Justice doesn’t have to worry about that. As this is a government thing, the government will cover the costs and the Judicial branch will be unscathed. It’s like a bastardized throwback to the federal government shut down of the mid-’90s only here it’s directly effecting the people by robbing them of their Constitutional rights.

Ah, politics. And I think they elect their judges in Alabama too.

I’m doing my roomate a favor and working on his site a wee bit for him. Why? Well, he asked, I’m bored, and I figure I might as well. I already tweaked a few things for him to make the current look smoother. Nothing spectacular yet, but just you wait….

Monday Mission

1. When was the last time you pampered yourself?

Um…. I can’t recall when I last pampered myself. I treated myself to McDonalds yesterday for lunch, does that count?

2. When was the last time someone pampered you?

Yesterday, when Jenn and I just sat there. That’s all I need.

3. Describe the last time you recall really feeling loved (other than from children or pets).

I actually really feel loved most of the time these days. I’m very happy with Jenn and it’s cool.

4. Has your use of the computer ever caused any arguments? What’s the story there?

Not arguments, but sometimes I’m on the net way too much. It’s not really anything that’s argued, just something that’s pointed out time to time and I really need to work on fixing.

5. What’s the most embarrassing thing your Mom ever did?

Oh, crap. Well, this isn’t something my mom did directly, but it involves her.

Well, about 5 years ago during my senior year of high school my mom took me out to University of Virginia so I could take a test for Air Force ROTC stuff. We went to lunch at some restaurant out there and the waitress refered to her as my girlfriend. I will never live that down.

6. I’ve met some adults who’ve never learned to swim, and others who never learned how to ride a bike.. Is there anything that you never learned as a child that you probably should have?

Sports. I mean, I know them and play them, but I’m not good at any of them. I wish I was.

7. I have no idea who said it (and I spent all of two minutes trying to research it), but “someone” once said, a picture is worth a thousand words. Post an image that says more than words. Or instead, describe a picture you recall which touched your heart.

I need to find it, but there was a picture in Time I think of Israeli tanks entering the West Bank in the background and a flock of doves in the foreground. Perhaps not the number one picture of all time, but certainly one that recently touched me in many ways.

BONUS: What’s love got to do with it?

Absolutely nothing.

Neptune over at Laxtime tells me that Kelly Hu is the woman of the hour as of late, replacing Elin Nordegren as a big hit getter. Kelly Hu is the chick from The Scorpion King and quite attractive. But, still, I think it would be silly and unfair of me to use Kelly Hu’s name by saying Kelly Hu so much that I showed up when you searched Kelly Hu on Google using the terms “Kelly Hu”. I mean, that’s not fair! Any hits I get from saying Kelly Hu over and over (for example: Kelly Hu, Kelly Hu, Kelly Hu, Kelly Hu, Kelly Hu, Kelly Hu, Kelly Hu, Kelly Hu, Kelly Hu, Kelly Hu and more of the same) aren’t really my hits, I didn’t really earn them. Though, I did take some time to write something, so maybe I did earn it.

You can find stuff on her here (look at the screensavers, very nice), here, and here for starters.

I have no shame. Mwa ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!

May is National Masturbation Month!

Fourth Annual Masturbate-A-Thon

Touch yourself for a good cause.

Americans For Purity: Winning The War On Masturbation

This site is dedicated to exposing the REAL Number One Public Health Problem in America today: Masturbation. If you have come here looking for Jokes or Humor about Masturbation, then you have come to the wrong place! But if you have come to be Educated on the Straight Facts about the EVILS of Masturbation, then Welcome!

Masturbation can be a powerfull addiction.

Women tempt men into lustfull thoughts, such as eve tempted adam with the apple. Since the Dawn of time women have sought to corrupt mens godly thoughs.

When you can break the bonds of lust that women hold over men, like the way a terrorist holds a person hostage.

Here are some steps to taking back your life from women and getting back to God.

God Bless

News: Gates’ attempts to buy Nintendo

Not content with trying the purchase Sega, Microsoft pulled out all the stops to attempt to buy Nintendo. Bill Gates was prepared to stump up $25 billion for the Japanese gaming giant.

A new book called Opening the Xbox: Inside Microsoft’s Plan to Unleash an Entertainment Revolution has revealed that Bill Gates’ powerhouse tried to purchase Nintendo. When interviewing Nintendo’s U.S president Minoru Arakawa, he let slip that Nintendo ‘weren’t sure what to think when Microsoft made the offer.” He continued with the commments “I was surprised, we didn’t need the money. I thought it was a joke.”

Have you ever wanted to come up with a great evil plan, but just never had the time or intelligence? Well your prayers have been answered, because now with the Evil Plan Generator, you can come up with any number of plans in no time at all to wreak havoc upon the world!

U.S. Envisions Blueprint on Iraq Including Big Invasion Next Year

The Bush administration, in developing a potential approach for toppling President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, is concentrating its attention on a major air campaign and ground invasion, with initial estimates contemplating the use of 70,000 to 250,000 troops.

The administration is turning to that approach after concluding that a coup in Iraq would be unlikely to succeed and that a proxy battle using local forces there would be insufficient to bring a change in power.

But senior officials now acknowledge that any offensive would probably be delayed until early next year, allowing time to create the right military, economic and diplomatic conditions. These include avoiding summer combat in bulky chemical suits, preparing for a global oil price shock, and waiting until there is progress toward ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

So you want to build your own jail…. first you need supplies.

Hey, Kids! It’s Uncle Bugly!

Landover strikes again.

Creepy Clown’s Gallery

Can you imagine a world without murder?

uh…..okay….

Basic Survival Techniques for Incarceration

Above all, you must realize that you’ll be a prisoner like all the others, reduced to just a number, and no better than an illiterate Cuban whore or white trailer trash.

Is this you?

and

Is this yours?

What’s better?

Hotmail at Risk to Cookie Thieves

MSN Hotmail users, guard your cookies. A simple technique for accessing Microsoft’s free e-mail service without a password is in the wild and apparently being exploited.

The trick involves capturing a copy of the victim’s browser cookies file. Once the perpetrator gains two key Hotmail cookies, there’s no way to lock him out because at Hotmail, cookies trump even passwords.

“What’s scary about this is that once they have your cookies, they have your account forever. Even if you change your password, they can still get in,” said Eric Glover, a New Jersey-based programmer who has a doctorate in computer science from the University of Michigan.

Legislation would give free-lance writers, artists increased bargaining power with publishers

Free-lance writers and artists could gain increased bargaining power with publishers under a new bill before Congress.

The legislation by Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, would exempt free-lancers from antitrust laws that now prevent them from uniting to bargain with publishers on fees and republication rights.

“It’s just a fairness question,” Conyers said Thursday. He said free-lancers’ status under existing laws makes it impossible for them to have a level playing field in negotiating contracts.

Apple I computer sells for $14,000

An auction for a vintage Apple I computer, complete with a monochrome screen and cassette player, drew only a handful of bidders and ended up selling for $14,000–the minimum reserve price set by the seller. That’s a far cry from recent years when similar machines sold for as much as $50,000.

“That’s just not going to happen, at least not now or for the immediate future,” said Salem Ismail, the producer of the Vintage Computer Festival, who set up the auction for a seller who wanted to remain anonymous. A couple of years ago there were a lot of people with disposable incomes and stock options that drove up the prices, he said. “I knew the bidding (this time) would be rather reserved.”

Of course $14,000 it is still a lot more than the $666 that the Apple I circuit board sold for in 1976. However, buyers of the Apple I had to add their own accessories, including monitor, cassette drive and power supply, to actually use the computer.

Three reasons to fall in love with Mozilla

Ah, Mozilla. It’s been up and it’s been down, but it’s finally starting to get some respect. What follows are my personal reasons for liking Mozilla. Other browsers have some or all of these features, but Internet Explorer has none of them. And any one of these features ought to be enough to make even the most recalcitrant Explorer user switch browsers.

Hell, I’m convinced.

A quick thanks to my mother who donated money to me through the Amazon Honor System donation thingy. My mom rules. That’s a few more bucks towards the “Jason Needs a Computer” fund. You see, I don’t have a computer of my own, all my designing and surfing and all that good stuff happens on either at work, on my roommate’s computer, or my girlfriend’s computer and that sucks when I go to do some heavy duty webdesign. I don’t want to load the computers up with all of my stuff. Not fair to them, you know? So, I’m starting the “Jason Needs a Computer” fund. Want to help? Well, by all means…

All donations receive a personal and heartfelt e-mail of thanks from yours truly and the promise of food and/or drink if you’re ever in the DC/Fredericksburg, VA area (just don’t all come at once). I’ll take any and all donations, I’m a whore like that (though, Amazon requires that I take a minimum of $1 and they will be taking a whopping 15% of all donations, so you know).

Hey, if you want to get around that 15%, feel free to e-mail me and I’ll give you an address you can send the money to directly! Yeah!

And, anyone sending $20 or more will receive for free a copy of J’s Nuts Volume 1, a collection of some of my favorite songs all on one disk for you to enjoy. Yes, that’s right, a free CD! Oooooo….

So, yeah, if you’ve got nothing better to do with some money lying around, I can certainly find a use for it.

18 shot dead at German school

Eighteen people have been killed after two gunmen went on the rampage at a school in the east German city of Erfurt, according to latest reports quoting German police.

One of the two, a former student of the Gutenberg school who was only recently expelled, is now dead, said police spokesman Klaus-Peter Pohl.

Police said he killed himself.

They have not yet established contact with the other gunman, who is thought to be a pupil at the school, and is holed up in a classroom on the first floor with at least one handgun and a rifle.

BBC Berlin correspondent Rob Broomby says 20 pupils are trapped in the complex, possibly being held hostage.

He says a banner hanging from a window can be seen with the message: “Help!”

Two teachers, one male and one female, were among the first to die in the shooting spree, which started just before 1100 (0900 GMT).

A police woman was shot and killed shortly after arriving at the scene.

Local radio cited a pupil as saying that a fellow-pupil pulled the gun as he was about to sit a maths exam, but the report remains unconfirmed.

18 dead in German school shooting

At least 18 people, many of them feared to be children, have been killed after at least one gunman opened fire at a high school in Germany, police say.

Teachers, a police officer and a gunman have been confirmed as being among those who died in the shooting at Gutenberg Gymnasium School in the eastern German city of Erfurt, a police spokesman told CNN.

Police stormed the building amid reports a second gunman was feared to be holding dozens of pupils hostage inside.

Police sources said the operation, involving German special forces and snipers, had ended.

The dead gunman was a former pupil who had been expelled a few weeks ago, police confirmed to CNN.

Dear Lord.

Report: Cardinal Law to take Vatican post

Beleaguered Boston Cardinal Bernard Law is expected to be replaced by June and assigned to a new position at the Vatican, a Boston newspaper reported Friday.

The Boston Herald quoted unnamed church officials saying Pope John Paul II would move the embattled archbishop to an undetermined post before a scheduled deposition of Law in a suit against the Boston archdiocese.

Law has faced increasing public pressure to resign for his handling of alleged sex abuse cases involving priests in his archdiocese. In one case, he moved former priest John Geoghan — now in prison for molesting an 11-year-old boy — from parish to parish even though he knew of allegations Geoghan had abused children.

Archbishop Law’s Future Reportedly Under Discussion at Vatican

Vatican officials have begun an examination of whether embattled Cardinal Bernard F. Law can still lead the Archdiocese of Boston while he remains at the center of the priest sex abuse scandal, according to a published report.

According to a report in The Boston Globe on Friday, the Vatican’s Congregation of Bishops has begun discussing Law’s future. Law and other U.S. bishops returned Thursday from a two-day meeting at the Vatican about the sexual abuse crisis.

“It seems that one of the things that urgently needs examination after the progress that was made this week is how to establish criteria for determining when a man has lost the capacity to govern a diocese,” said George Weigel, Pope John II’s American biographer.

While Weigel said the Congregation of Bishops has begun an examination of Law … “That conversation has been opened, but the nature of the case is not open at this point.”

Weird I use w.Bloggar to post to J’s Notes and every now and then it gets a little funky on me and won’t let me retrieve my posts or something like that. You know, like it’s doing right now. Oh well, it’s a neat prog and it works great most of the time.

Friday Five

1. What are your hobbies?

Buying, reading and boxing up comics, playing the guitar, webdesign, writing, and slacking.

2. Do you collect anything? If so, what?

Dust.

No, wait, seriously. Comics. I have some sports cards, but they’re old and what not. Hell, I collect everything, I’m a damn packrat. But comics are the one thing I probably collect the most. I’m a dork like that.

3. Is there a hobby you’re interested in, but just don’t have the time/money to do?

Oh, man, I’d love to go flying again. I was a student pilot way back when but it’s been about 7 years now since I last flew (right before I turned 16, I was a young pilot). Wow, I wish I could afford to go up again. It was amazing.

4. Have you ever turned a hobby into a moneymaking opportunity?

Not yet, but I’m kicking around the idea of webdesigning for bucks and possibly opening a comic store in the future. I’m a dork like that.

5. Besides web-related stuff (burbs, rings, etc.), what clubs do you belong to?

Hmmm…. Well, I’m an officer with the Fredericksburg Young Republicans and a member of the Fredericksburg GOP. I kinda have a band, if that counts as a club. Otherwise, nope, not a thing.

The $20,000 Zig

Can toilet-paper vigilante wipe out pranks?

Marcus Michles awoke with a start about 1:30 a.m.

Heart hammering, he heard a commotion outside.

He grabbed his gun.

But when the Gulf Breeze father looked out the window, all he saw was white toilet paper everywhere.

In the tradition of Gulf Breeze High School’s homecoming week, Michles’ Fairpoint Drive home and vehicles had been “rolled” by six teens on Oct. 30. Toilet paper hung from tree branches. It draped bushes. Cars were encased in the hard-to-remove paper.

An angry Michles, 40, bolted from his home and chased down the culprits.

Police reports state that two teen-age boys said Michles pulled them from a vehicle, punched one in the mouth, dragged both to the porch of his home, then went inside and came back with his 9mm Glock, which he pointed at the other teen’s head.

Atkins diet author home after cardiac arrest

Nutrition expert and author Dr. Robert Atkins, creator of the high-protein/low-carbohydrate “Atkins Diet,” was released Wednesday from hospital care and is resting well after his heart stopped, a condition called cardiac arrest.

Atkins was waiting for breakfast at a restaurant near his office last Thursday in Manhattan when he went into cardiac arrest. He was quickly revived by an associate and taken to the New York Weill Cornell Medical Center.

The episode was caused by cardiomyopathy, a condition in which the heart’s ability to pump blood is weakened because of enlargement, thickening or stiffening of the heart muscle.

In Atkins’ case, cardiomyopathy was caused by an infection that spread to his heart muscle.

“I have had cardiomyopathy, which is a non-coronary condition and is in no way related to diet,” Atkins said in a statement.

Egypt ready to wage war on Israel … for $US100 billion

Egyptian Prime Minister Atef Ebeid said his country would go to war with Israel if Arab countries stumped up $US100 billion ($A186.32 billion) to pay for the confrontation, in an interview published yesterday.

“If you want to undertake an action and be ready to face up to challenges, you need at least $100 billion,” he told the Abu Dhabi Government’s Al-Ittihad newspaper when asked why Egypt had taken no measures against Israel’s military offensive against the Palestinians.

Why dogs kill their owners.

National “Shut the Hell Up” Month

Conversation is dead

It often seems that everywhere you turn someone is saying something useless. Coworkers, family members and acquaintances blither about the weather, or what they saw on TV last night and other shallow subjects that many of us don’t care about. We live in an age where people rarely ask questions of one another that provokes a thoughtful dialogue.

Today what passes for conversations is a steady stream of useless anecdotes. Many people simply spew out uninformed knee-jerk opinions about things they know very little about. They prattle on about their miserable jobs, their dysfunctional families, and their mismanaged lives. Cable TV talk shows and so called “news” programs are the public venue for the continual stream of mindless jibber.

In America, people often confuse talking with thinking. Constructing a thought in silence is not possible for many Americans and we know who you are. To you we say SHUT THE HELL UP!

Wild. Careful if you’re prone to seizures…

Mr T vs. EVERYTHING!

United States Patent 6,293,874 - User-operated amusement apparatus for kicking the user’s buttocks

whereby as the user bends forward while grasping said crank, the user bends at his waist to predominantly present his buttocks toward said outboard end on each of said plurality of rotating arms, and the user operates said crank to engage said drive train and to rotate said plurality of rotating arms, causing each respective outboard end on each of said plurality of rotating arms to sequentially strike the user’s buttocks.

Whale of a Sandwich

First came the hamburger. Now, from Japan, the whaleburger.

This newest contribution to world sandwich cuisine is the brainstorm of “Kujiraya,” or “Place of Whales,” a small shop in the port city of Shimonoseki, 825 km (490 miles) southwest of Tokyo, and just a short taxi ride from this year’s meeting of the International Whaling Commission that is discussing the controversial industry.

Tossing the Death Penalty?

A federal judge today said he was ready to declare the death penalty unconstitutional unless the government can adequately explain why so many death row inmates turn out to be innocent.

U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff made the conclusion in an 11-page order in which he said he was about to toss out the death penalty eligibility of two men charged in a drug and murder conspiracy.

He said an earlier ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court upholding the federal death penalty law relied on an assumption that it was “highly unlikely that an executed person would subsequently be discovered to be innocent.”

“That assumption no longer seems tenable,” Rakoff said, citing evidence including a recent Columbia Law School study concluding that the rate of prejudicial error in the capital punishment system was 68 percent.

“Evidence has emerged that clearly indicates that, despite all the aforementioned safeguards, innocent people - mostly of color - are convicted of capital crimes they never committed, their convictions affirmed, and their collateral remedies denied, with a frequency far greater than previously supposed,” the judge wrote.

Lawmakers defending secret warrants (Michigan)

When an Oakland Press reporter sought a search warrant from a district court Tuesday, a clerk said “they can’t be released” and handed over a copy of the memo about the new law.

The new law “makes all search warrants, affidavits and tabulations in any court file or record retention system nonpublic,” according to the memo.

“How else is that to be interpreted?” said Dawn Phillips, a First Amendment lawyer with the Michigan Press Association. “People in law enforcement want to follow laws. If they are looking at that memo, they are not going to release those records.”

The bills were part of an anti-terrorism package that passed the Legislature after the Sept. 11 attacks.

At issue are affidavits, the sworn information police submit to courts when they want to get permission to search someone’s home. The information often includes the name of the person who has told police where the criminal or evidence can be found.

If a person’s home is searched and he or she is charged with a crime, a defense lawyer can demand access to the information. If the government seeks to forfeit the person’s property in a civil case, the file also would be opened.

But if no charges are brought, the new law doesn’t spell out a way for the person who was searched to learn why the police searched the home.

The Combovers Experience

5Inch Custom designed blank CDRs and cases

Weddings, ticks and blogs

Blogging is bigger than Journalism. John Scalzi’s useful recent number crunching ignored the impact blogging has on the lives of its producers/consumers. For both writer and reader, blogging works better than Journalism because, as with all natural communication, there’s instant feedback between audience and creator, whether through log files, reactions in other blogs, or opinion aggregators like Metafilter, Blogdex and Daypop.

Holy crap Lyndon Larouche is still around.

‘It’s what I have to do’

Nobody here understands the degree to which anger has reached boiling point throughout the Arab world, and throughout Europe, and throughout — I mean, there is a Japanese who burned himself, for God’s sake, and others. And there must be higher US national interests outside of the domestic scene, and also votes, and money, and so on, which should compel the president. There was another Republican president in 1956, his name was Dwight Eisenhower, and when he said “Now!” he meant it. The Israelis withdrew from Suez in 48 hours.

Well, that’s a very interesting comparison to make, especially when people in Egypt, of course, will particularly be interested in this aspect of it, because of that. But remember that Eisenhower was an opponent of what is called the “utopian” military policy of the United States, which was developing at that time. And the utopian policy erupted into the open, when Eisenhower ended his term as president, where he made that famous speech about the military- industrial complex.

What happened is that with Eisenhower gone, the people who had not dared to challenge him directly when he was president went on with a revolution in military policy, which has now become a lunatic copy of not only the Roman legions, but also the Nazi Waffen-SS, on a world scale.

So, we have a faction in the United States, typified by Kissinger, Brzezinski, Huntington, and so forth, who are pushing for a clash of civilisations war. The Israeli faction, the fascists of Israel, while they are to some degree in conflict with the United States, because they do have conflicts in immediate interests, also have the same general convergence.

A good example is the case of Iraq. Sharon desperately needs an attack on Lebanon and Syria at least, and preferably Iraq. He’s got an impossible situation inside Israel. He cannot continue this operation against the Palestinians within Israel alone, and get by with it. He is, therefore, going to seek a broader war in the Arab world, and the targets are, of course, Syria, Iraq especially and possibly Iran. These are his principal targets of opportunity. The Israeli military is behind him. Netanyahu will follow the same policy if he succeeds Sharon, and there’s a possibility of that.

So, what you have is a convergence of those in the United States who want a clash of civilisations war with an Israeli fascist faction, which is building up an Israeli resistance against this stuff — there is a growing movement of Israelis who recognise this as fascism, that Rabin was right, and that Sharon is wrong. That is also happening.

Then you have also the completely opportunist factor, in terms of US opportunist politics, election politics and so forth. And the economic crisis, world economic crisis. All of these things are converging to create a tragedy which I have compared to Nero, from the time he had this crazy sexual orgy and launched the burning of Rome, until the destruction of Nero by the consequences of what he did. And you have a true, classical tragedy being enacted by the United States government, in particular now, because the United States is the one power that could stop Israel from doing this; it [must] stop Israel from doing this, and it’s refusing to do so.

Copy of “Nazi Waffen-SS”? We’re pawns of Israel? And he learned all of this where? From the library of the jail where he spent the last 15 years? Sigh.

test

RIAA wants tax dollars to combat piracy

The Recording Industry Association of America is calling for additional federal funding to combat the ongoing wave of piracy, saying that the number of arrests and convictions for copyright crimes has skyrocketed over the course of a year.

In a congressional hearing Tuesday before a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, the RIAA requested additional funds for federal anti-piracy law enforcement efforts and is pushing for a renewed agenda on protecting intellectual property. The RIAA, which did not request a specific amount, said the additional funds are needed for investigations and cases.

Specifically, the RIAA is requesting the funds be used to create additional squads or units for a program called Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property, which is part of the Justice Department’s initiative to fight cybercrime. Although the RIAA applauded the creation of CHIP, it said it is concerned that CHIP’s main focus will be on computer hacking and not on intellectual property. The RIAA requested in its testimony that these CHIP units make intellectual property a top priority.

The Browser That Roared

In the beginning there was one Web browser. It was called Mosaic, and if you didn’t like it you could go back to watching Murphy Brown, or whatever it was we did before we had the Web. Then Microsoft started giving away Internet Explorer, Mosaic turned into Netscape, and suddenly life was complicated. It was like Coke vs. Pepsi, or Mets vs. Yankees: everybody had to choose. When Microsoft won the browser wars, by hook or by crook (the jury is still out on that), life got simple again.

Brace yourself. A nonprofit group loosely affiliated with Netscape is about to release a new browser called Mozilla. It’s fast, it’s flexible, and it has the backing of AOL (which owns Netscape, not to mention Time) and its 35 million users. Life is about to get complicated.

Now I have to check this out. I mean, I’d heard of it, but I hadn’t heard enough to peak my interest.