The Dark Age Has Begun, and I Am Its Minion.








Sports are more than just the vestigial remains of militancy among tribes. Soccer has political ramifications in places like Korea and Argentina. [Mother Jones]








Bangladesh -- usually known for its devastating floods and sweatshop conditions -- also has a burgeoning middle class, and thus theme parks, Thai disco instructors, supermarkets and Italian restaurants.

But for most Bangladeshis these wonders are beyond their reach. The 10% at the top of the pyramid control nearly 40% of the wealth and half of the country is below the poverty line.








Amnesty says US human rights record on par with Cuba's.








Two-thirds of Americans are at high risk of cancer because of toxic chemicals in their environment.








Office memos as social history.

2. What I need is a list of specific unknown problems we will encounter. (Lykes Lines Shipping)

3. How long is this Beta guy going to keep testing our stuff? (Programming intern, Microsoft IIS development team)

9. My sister passed away and her funeral was scheduled for Monday. When I told my boss, he said she died so that I would have to miss work on the busiest day of the year. He then asked if we could change her burial to Friday. He said, "That would be better for me." (Shipping Executive, FTD Florists)

10. We know that communication is a problem, but the company is not going to discuss it with the employees. (AT&T Long Lines Division)

See, I just can't tell if this is real or not... because I know it might be, just like with the gay Afghan farmers.

Quoting senior government officials, the Times said that an secret internal assessment, "the Director's Report on Terrorism", found that nearly every major FBI field office lacked the staff needed to evaluate and deal with the threat posed by al Qaeda, which Washington now blames for the hijacking attacks that killed more than 3,000 people last year.

But spending increases called for in the document were rejected by the Justice Department. On Sept. 10, Attorney General John Ashcroft, who was not given a copy of the classified report, rejected an FBI request for an additional $58 million for counter-terrorism. [link]

Australia, Sweden and Canada are among the best. Russia, China, and South Korea among the worst. The US is right in the middle.








freebooknotes.com -- "Cliff Notes" online for 250 classics.

I never used Cliff Notes, being a strange lad who liked to read.








Weather modification was and is big business -- and a big weapon, if the miltary has anything to say about it.

In March 1997, Arnold A. Barnes Jr., of John Hopkins University and Phillips Laboratory, described a key element of Full Spectrum Dominance at the U.S. Army’s Tecom Test Technology Symposium. In his address, Barnes, a consultant on the Air Force study, calmly outlined the history of the U.S. military’s weather modification programs and what would be needed for future “integrated weather modification capabilities.”

The good doctor referred to the document “Spacecast 2020,” later updated in “Weather As A Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025,” which noted, “Atmospheric scientists have pursued terrestrial weather modification in earnest since the 1940s… Space presents us with a new arena, technology provides new opportunities.”

[...]

Moreover, Barnes insisted that the weaponization of space is the key to warfare in the 21st century. The U.S. government would later produce a document named “Joint Vision for 2020” under the auspices of the U.S. Space Command outlining plan for “Full Spectrum Dominance.” In the years following Barnes’ presentation on fully integrating high-tech weather modification into the U.S. military, so-called “chemtrail” sightings have occurred throughout the United States and its Western allies.

Brzezinski predicted: “Technology will make available, to the leaders of major nations, techniques for conducting secret warfare, of which only a bare minimum of the security forces need be appraised… Technology of weather modification could be employed to produce prolonged periods of drought or storm.”

Meanwhile, the commercial applications of the technology are apparently paying off. Weather Modification Inc. signed a contract with Thailand in 1996 to help “the southeast Asian country get a better grip on its weather” through “cloud modification.” In 1997, the Wall Street Journal reported that the government of Malaysia signed a contract with a Russian-owned company to create cyclones to blow pollution out to sea.

. . .








There's a weird thing that happens when enough people do similar work or use similar tools in some area of art or music. It gets a name, becomes a movement, a compilation, a gallery show. Reading about lowercase sound makes me go through all these reflex emotions, because I listen to music along these lines (interesting phrase), and think of it in a new way. A new excitement makes you hear the music in a new way, in a more complex way. Or not.








US gives military aid to both India & Pakistan, making money for US companies, instead of defusing tensions by imposing a moratorium on weapons sales.








How Cold War insecurities, India's neutrality and US aid to Pakistan contributed to the current threat of nuclear conflict.

Ambassador Thompson says that security assurances may be a major factor in determining whether India develops nuclear weapons, but adds that India’s neutrality would preclude a formal U.S. guarantee. He suggests a statement from India indicating that it is confident that the major nuclear powers would react if it were the target of nuclear attack. It would also declare its intent not to develop nuclear weapons. The U.S. would retain the freedom to determine how it would respond if there were an actual crisis. [Item 6]

Why this doesn't happen as much to girls isn't mentioned.








Not for the faint of heart. The nether reaches of libertarian thought.

Why it's good to pay attention when investors rush to precious metals, and the legality of tax laws.







Tuesday, May 28, 2002


I know it means something... A 78' obelisk stolen from Ethiopia by Mussolini in the 30s -- and which Ethiopia has demanded the return of -- was seriously damaged by a lightning strike last night.








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Big Science starts listenng to the Inuit's "anecdotal evidence" about climate change.

And so it has come to be, the elders say, a time when icebergs are melting, tides have changed, polar bears have thinned and there is no meaning left in a ring around the moon. Scattered clouds blowing in a wind no longer speak to elders and hunters. Daily weather markers are becoming less predictable in the fragile Arctic as its climate changes.

Inuit elders and hunters who depend on the land say they are disturbed by what they are seeing swept in by the changes: deformed fish, caribou with bad livers, baby seals left by their mothers to starve. Just the other year, a robin appeared where no robin had been seen before. There is no word for robin in Inuktitut, the Inuit language.

[...]

While scientists debate the causes of climate change and politicians debate whether to ratify the Kyoto accord to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that many scientists believe cause global warming, the Inuit who live in Canada's Far North say they are watching their world melt before their eyes.

Well, the service couldn't get much worse (if they're bought out); though we haven't had much trouble, Qwest is regularly fined for its poor service record.








New random search powers of the Australian police have inspired a website which will warn you of an impending search by mobile phone. The site is down due to high usage as I post this. [Zem's]








Fear breeds fear. An excellent editorial by James Carroll.

The war on terrorism is not the only manifestation of heightened levels of our national fear. This week Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin will sign an arms reduction treaty that includes a US-sponsored provision allowing for the indefinite mothballing of thousands of disarmed nuclear weapons. Notice this: The United States, breaking with the primordial assumption of nuclear arms control, is now saying that the overkill supply of warheads must be preserved against future threats - as yet entirely unimagined. This marks the end of the hope, long shared by conservatives and liberals alike, that human beings might eventually wean themselves of these terrible weapons altogether.

In one stroke, Bush has taken us from ''reduction'' to ''storage.'' He has reversed the most positive foreign policy track of our lifetimes, and he has done it out of fear.

Here is the irony: The surest way to make the world an even more dangerous place is to posit danger as the most important thing about it. This week's treaty is the clearest case in point. America's determination to preserve thousands of excess nuclear warheads means that now Russia, despite its firm preference for elimination, will certainly preserve them as well. [also not found]

Not really crazy about Eno's material since The Shutov Assembly.








Aussie doctors want to ban junk food ads on TV during peak kidwatching hours, because obesity is skyrocketing.

Oddly, the Food Mobsters are "claiming the causes of obesity are complex and the ban would have no effect."








Greg Palast disses the Justice Dept. suit against county officials in FLA as "a sham". He moved back to the US this weekend.

After reviewing the Justice Department's information, Palast stated today, "The US Justice Department's suit is a sham - the beneficiaries of the voting disaster, Bush's agencies, have figured out a way to do the least possible political damage to candidates Katherine Harris and Jeb Bush. They have aimed their fire at blameless county officials when the disaster was created in Tallahassee - a disaster for Black voters, though a blessing to the highly partisan Secretary of State's office. I fear this is an attempt to undercut the suit by the NAACP against Harris and others more directly responsible."

It's interesting how my reading in conspiracy theory and investigative reporting into national and international issues are dovetailing.






Sunday, May 26, 2002


The Other Demo dark horse: Dennis Kucinich. Though he's anti-abortion, having grown up a Catholic and representing a largely Catholic district in Ohio. His notorious speech -- back when the Anti-Terror juggernaut was going full steam -- questioning the squelching of civil liberties and the bombing of Afghanistan was a light in the darkness.








The Rise and Fall of Martha -- who "kickstarted 'domesticity as a site for feminist reclamation'", or so says Debbie Stoller of Bust magazine.

I just always wanted to slap her, and not because she's a powerful woman. She just needs it. Anyone with a perfection fetish does. She creeps me out.

So I guess now she's getting it, in a way.








How blogs are re-defining the news.








After the recent conglomeration of the publishing industry, now the surviving small publishers are being marginalized by megastores and robbed outright by The Money Mobsters.








Ron Charles' review of the latest of 3 humorous critiques of self-help books, Happiness® by Will Ferguson makes an essential point about these writers -- after nodding approvingly at their "Apocalypse Nice" satirical prose.

There's a surprisingly old-fashioned Puritanism in these witty modern novels by Hornby, Shields, and Ferguson. Each betrays a deep anxiety about the pursuit of happiness, suggesting that it's necessarily humorless, simpleminded, or fanatical. They take a kind of Calvinistic offense at any radical devotion to self-improvement, as though it violated their faith in Original Sin.