The Word: sigh

Name all Republicans under investigation in one breath, ready? GO!

Ten F!@#ing Years!

The Daily Show looks back on ten years of...reporting on the Presidents?

Radar ranks the 10 biggest fools on the Hill
By Holly Martins

Is it possible that some of these people were born with just enough conscience to operate their pieholes? Read the full article to comprehend:As long as they don't eat babies...

3. Senator James Inhofe (R-OK)
Inhofe is best known for his categorical claim that global warming is "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people"—a rhetorical flourish he recently refined by likening climate change theories to Nazi propaganda. And here's the scary part: Those are the sentiments of our chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee. It's a bit like making Lyndon LaRouche the American Ambassador to England.

But that's not the half of it. As far back as 1972, he called for Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern to be "hanged with Jane Fonda" for referring to alleged atrocities committed by American troops in Vietnam. In 2001, he took to the Senate floor to announce that Israel was justified in whatever treatment it handed out to Palestinians because, after all, God had promised the Jews the land they occupied. For good measure, he also called Palestinian terror bombers practitioners of "satanic evil," and intimated to the New Republic that both Bill and Hillary Clinton were out to assassinate him.

And then there was the recent debate over the latest constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, when Inhofe assured Senate colleagues of his own virility and that of his manly forbearers. "My wife and I have been married 47 years. We have 20 kids and grandkids. I'm really proud to say that in the recorded history of our family, we've never had a divorce or a homosexual relationship." It's the same flawless gene pool that produced a man who thinks our situation in Iraq is "nothing short of a miracle."

With his job approval ratings down so low...

...Jon wonders maybe thats just because we don't know what his job is. Eh?

Opinion piece from the NYTimes:

"IN the autumn of 68 B.C. the world’s only military superpower was dealt a profound psychological blow by a daring terrorist attack on its very heart. Rome’s port at Ostia was set on fire, the consular war fleet destroyed, and two prominent senators, together with their bodyguards and staff, kidnapped.

The incident, dramatic though it was, has not attracted much attention from modern historians. But history is mutable. An event that was merely a footnote five years ago has now, in our post-9/11 world, assumed a fresh and ominous significance. For in the panicky aftermath of the attack, the Roman people made decisions that set them on the path to the destruction of their Constitution, their democracy and their liberty. One cannot help wondering if history is repeating itself."
Hit the link

Presidential Miscreant

The Last Days of Clinton's Presidency

Enjoy:

I found a neat map on Digg.com this afternoon.

In the Beginning...

"In the beginning there was the Computer.",

"And God said",

"C:>LET THERE BE LIGHT!",

"Enter user-id.",

"C:>GOD",

"Enter password.",


"C:>OMNISCIENT",

"Password incorrect. Try again.",

"C:>OMNIPOTENT",

"Password incorrect. Try again.",

"C:>TECHNOCRAT",

"And God logged on at 00:00:01, day 1.",

"C:>LET THERE BE LIGHT!",

"Unrecognisable command. Try again.",

"C:>CREATE LIGHT",


"Done",

"C:>RUN HEAVEN AND EARTH",

"And God created Day and Night. And God saw that there were 0 errors.",

"And God logged off at 00:01:00, day 1.",

" ",

"And God logged on at 00:00:01, day 2.",

"C:>LET THERE BE FIRMAMENT IN THE MIDST OF WATER AND LIGHT",

"Unrecognisable command. Try again..",

"C:>CREATE FIRMAMENT",


"Done.",

"C:>RUN HEAVEN AND EARTH",

"And God divided the waters. And God saw that there were 0 errors.",

"And God logged off at 00:02:00, day 2.",

" ",

"And God logged on at 00:00:01, day 3.",

"C:>LET THE WATERS UNDER HEAVEN BE GATHERED TOGETHER UNTO ONE PLACE AND LET THE DRY LAND APPEAR",

"Too many characters in specification string. Try again.",

"C:>CREATE DRY_LAND",


"Done.",

"C:>RUN HEAVEN AND EARTH",

"C:>LET THE EARTH PRODUCE FRESH GROWTH, LET THERE BE ON THE EARTH PLANTS",

"Too many characters in specification string. Try again.",

"C:>CREATE PLANTS",

"C:>RUN HEAVEN AND EARTH",

"So it was; the Earth yielded fresh growth, plants bearing seed. And God saw that there were 0 errors.",

"And God logged off at 00:02:00, day 3.",

" ",


"And God logged on at 00:00:01, day 4.",

"C:>CREATE LIGHTS IN THE FIRMAMENT TO DIVIDE THE DAY FROM THE NIGHT",

"Unspecified type. Try again.",

"C:>CREATE SUN_MOON_STARS",

"Done",

"C:>RUN HEAVEN AND EARTH",

"These lights governed day and night and separated light from darkness. And God saw there were 0 errors.",

"And God logged off at 00:02:00, day 4.",

" ",


"And God logged on at 00:00:01, day 5.",

"C:>CREATE FISH",

"Done",

"C:>CREATE FOWL",

"Done",

"C:>RUN HEAVEN AND EARTH",

"And God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that creepeth wherewith the waters swarmed after its kind and every winged fowl after its kind. And God saw that there were 0 errors.",

"And God logged off at 00:02:00, day 5.",

" ",


"And God logged on at 00:00:01, day 6.",

"C:>CREATE CATTLE",

"Done",

"C:>CREATE CREEPY_THINGS",

"Done",

"C:>RUN HEAVEN AND EARTH",

"C:>NOW LET US MAKE MAN IN OUR IMAGE",

"Unspecified type. Try again.",

"C:>CREATE MAN",


"Done",

"C:>BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY AND REPLENISH THE EARTH AND SUBDUE IT AND HAVE DOMINION OVER THE FISH OF THE SEA AND OVER THE FOWL OF THE AIR AND OVER EVERY LIVING THING THAT CREEPETH UPON THE EARTH",

"Too many command operands. Try again.",

"C:>RUN MULTIPLICATION",

"Execution terminated. 6 errors.",

"C:>INSERT BREATH",

"Done",

"C:>RUN MULTIPLICATION",

"Execution terminated. 5 errors.",


"C:>MOVE MAN TO GARDEN OF EDEN",

"File Garden of Eden does not exist.",

"C:>CREATE GARDEN.EDN",

"Done",

"C:>MOVE MAN TO GARDEN.EDN",

"Done",

"C:>RUN MULTIPLICATION",

"Execution terminated. 4 errors.",

"C:>COPY WOMAN FROM MAN",


"Done",

"C:>RUN MULTIPLICATION",

"Execution terminated. 3 errors.",

"C:>CREATE DESIRE",

"Done",

"C:>RUN MULTIPLICATION",

"Execution terminated. 2 errors.",

"C:>CREATE FREEWILL",

"Done",


"C:>RUN FREEWILL",

"And God saw man and woman being fruitful and multiplying in Garden.edn",

"Warning: No time limit set. 1 errors.",

"C:>UNDO DESIRE",

"Desire cannot be undone. File may be in use by Freewill.",

"C:>DELETE FREEWILL",

"Freewill cannot be deleted. it may be a hidden or system file or may be in use.",

"Enter replacement, cancel, or ask for help.",

"C:>HELP",


"Desire cannot be undone. File may be in use by Freewill.",

"Freewill cannot be deleted. it may be a hidden or system file or may be in use.",

"Try again, cancel or quit program.",

"Try again",

"Try again, cancel or quit program.",

"cancel",

"Try again, cancel or quit program.",

"quit",

"Try again, cancel or quit program.",


"C:>CREATE TREE_OF_KNOWLEDGE",

"And God saw man and woman being fruitful and multiplying in Garden.edn",

"Warning: No time limit set. 1 errors.",

"C:>CREATE GOOD, EVIL",

"Done",

"C:>ACTIVATE EVIL",

"And God saw he had created shame.",

"Warning system error. Missing or corrupt file: Man and Woman not in Garden.edn. 1 errors.",

"C:>SCAN GARDEN.EDN FOR MAN, WOMAN",


"Search failed.",

"C:>DELETE SHAME",

"Shame cannot be deleted. File may be in use by Freewill.",

"C:>DELETE FREEWILL",

"Freewill cannot be deleted. it may be a hidden or system file or may be in use.",

"Enter replacement, cancel, or ask for help.",

"C:>STOP",

"Unrecognizable command. Try again",

"C:>BREAK",


"C:>BREAK",

"C:>BREAK",

"ATTENTION ALL USERS *** ATTENTION ALL USERS COMPUTER GOING DOWN FOR REGULAR MAINTENANCE IN FIVE MINUTES. PLEASE LOG OFF.",

"C:>CREATE NEW WORLD",

"You have exceeded your allocated file space.",

"You must destroy old files before new ones can be created.",

"C:>DESTROY EARTH",

"Destroy earth: Please confirm.",

"COMPUTER DOWN *** COMPUTER DOWN.",


"SERVICES WILL RESUME day 8 AT 00:00:00",

"YOU MUST SIGN OFF NOW.",

"And God logged off at 23:59:59, day 6.",

" ",

"And God rested."

Self explanatory

Wiping off the fingerprints and rehearsing the 911 call

President Bush held a press conference friday outside on the Rose Garden because nothing else goes well with a roasting quite like presidential turf. Keith Olbermann chose the footage below of the conference for his Countdown segment asking the question, "Is he serious?".

What are we? We are the monkeys..

A satirical look at our race, but done tastefully.

Black is Back

Keith Olbermann goes after the president with tooth and nail

"It is to our deep national shame—and ultimately it will be to the President’s deep personal regret—that he has followed his Secretary of Defense down the path of trying to tie those loyal Americans who disagree with his policies—or even question their effectiveness or execution—to the Nazis of the past, and the al Qaeda of the present.

Today, in the same subtle terms in which Mr. Bush and his colleagues muddied the clear line separating Iraq and 9/11 — without ever actually saying so—the President quoted a purported Osama Bin Laden letter that spoke of launching, “a media campaign to create a wedge between the American people and their government.”

Make no mistake here—the intent of that is to get us to confuse the psychotic scheming of an international terrorist, with that familiar bogeyman of the right, the “media.”

The President and the Vice President and others have often attacked freedom of speech, and freedom of dissent, and freedom of the press.

Now, Mr. Bush has signaled that his unparalleled and unprincipled attack on reporting has a new and venomous side angle:

The attempt to link, by the simple expediency of one word—“media”—the honest, patriotic, and indeed vital questions and questioning from American reporters, with the evil of Al-Qaeda propaganda.

That linkage is more than just indefensible. It is un-American.

Mr. Bush and his colleagues have led us before to such waters.

We will not drink again.

And the President’s re-writing and sanitizing of history, so it fits the expediencies of domestic politics, is just as false, and just as scurrilous.

“In the 1920’s a failed Austrian painter published a book in which he explained his intention to build an Aryan super-state in Germany and take revenge on Europe and eradicate the Jews,” President Bush said today, “the world ignored Hitler’s words, and paid a terrible price.”

Whatever the true nature of al Qaeda and other international terrorist threats, to ceaselessly compare them to the Nazi State of Germany serves only to embolden them.

More over, Mr. Bush, you are accomplishing in part what Osama Bin Laden and others seek—a fearful American populace, easily manipulated, and willing to throw away any measure of restraint, any loyalty to our own ideals and freedoms, for the comforting illusion of safety.

It thus becomes necessary to remind the President that his administration’s recent Nazi “kick” is an awful and cynical thing.

And it becomes necessary to reach back into our history, for yet another quote, from yet another time and to ask it of Mr. Bush:

“Have you no sense of decency, sir?”

Edward R. Murrow's successor.

Here is the most convincing debate on religion...ever.

Brian Williams interviews the Bush

Keep expectations low...

Theres a second part to the interview that can be found in the queue list.

Parody of the old Macintosh ads

"The little handle on the back is for attaching a chain to it and using it as a BOAT ANCHOR"

Jon Stewart acceptance speech at the Emmys plus Colbert and Stewart presenting Award for best reality show

Freaking Barry Manilow

Stephen Colbert vs The Rancor

Nanotechnology, ooo the possibilities

Its an interesting prospect, but this manufacturing method is a long time off. The potential is there though in research labs across the world.

Starbucks and McDonald's, taking corporate America to the masses

From: Princeton

Remember Novak? Nope, neither did I.

The ending of this clip is such a Daily Show trademark.

So why doesn't our country believe in evolution?

It's an interesting topic, the most innovative and scientific country in the world, providing funding for scientific research that dwarfs that of other countries. Yet only 40% of us accept evolution as fact. However some of that 40% also believe that evolution had a helping hand from a deity. Curious, no?

New Scientist has an article up with some more intriguing information.

The First Episode of The Colbert Report (Oct. 17, 05)

Fearmongering

Jon places CNN in a fearmongering light, well actually CNN did it themselves but Jon pointed it out to the rest of us.

Microsoft's Ipod Solution

The Zune has finally surfaced wth pics!

THIS is the Colbert Report

Need Help?

With school coming up soon its important to have certain programs and services handy on your workstation. Heres four things all students need in school:

1. Meebo
An ajax solution to multiple IM standards and programs, allows users to sign into their AIM, yahoo, msn, jabber, and Gtalk screen names in one simple browser based web app. Hint: can be used to talk to your friends during school provided the webmaster hasnt blocked it.

2. Writely
Web-based word processor that stores all your work server side so you'll have access to all your essays from anywhere. Hint: When you don't finish your english analytical essay the night before you wont need to transfer to a hard copy (i.e.CD or floppy)

3. WorkFriendly
Just type a url into work friendly and itll generate a microsoft office page that lets you surf the web while making it look like your working. Hint: If your in tech drawing...

4. iProcrastinate
A management program for homework and projects, what more could you want?
Hint: Caity Erikson you need this program.

This is by far the best internal component setup i've ever seen, though, to be honest I have only ever used Gateways and eMachines.

Linux XGL/Compiz

"Compiz brings to life a variety of visual effects that make the Linux desktop easier to use, more powerful and intuitive, and more accessible for users with special needs. Compiz combines together a window manager and a composite manager using OpenGL for rendering. A 'window manager' allows the manipulation of the multiple applications and dialog windows that are presented on the screen. A 'composite manager' allows windows and other graphics to be combined together to create composite images. Compiz achieves its stunning effects by doing both of these functions."

Needless to say everything in the video is being run on advanced graphic cards, however these are the same cards upon which windows vista's aero and Apple's Aqua are based.
You can read the original article and see this video as well as Aero & Aqua demos by clicking this sentence.

Which OS do you find the most advanced?

Daily Show coverage of Dick Cheney's Face-Hunting expedition

Meez.com lets you creat your own web avatar based on your personal look. Thats me^

Politics? A famil business?

You decide.

I have discovered yet another blogging community, its name, Vox.

Its not open to the general public just yet but you can register and wait for an invite. Ive only been playing around with it for a few minutes but it really seems to offer some great tools for maintaining your blog. Such as the video feature which gives you options to import video from youtube, amazon, or ifilm. And of course straight from your hard drive. Heres what my current vox looks like.

Try it.

>.<

First Review: Dean Koontz's Fear Nothing

By Mike(Menghi) Xu


[09:15:16] Mike: this is a pretty weird book
[09:15:18] Mike: there is this guy
[09:15:23] Mike: who has Xerapjdafkjkd;f Poarkjdfkj
[09:15:37] Mike: which is a disorder where being exposed to light pwns him
[09:16:02] Mike: the mutated dna resulting from UV ray bombardment doesn't get replaced
[09:16:16] Mike: so he is easily seceptible to melenoma and burnination of the skin
[09:16:25] Mike: and like his dad just died
[09:16:29] Mike: and he went to the hospital
[09:16:35] Mike: and his dad's last words were 'fear nothing'
[09:16:44] Mike: and then the dudes took his body to go get burninated
[09:16:54] Mike: and the guy remembered his dad wanted the pictar of his wife
[09:17:02] Mike: to be w/ him when he go burninated
[09:17:09] Mike: so he brougt the suitcase down
[09:17:18] Mike: and then he saw the dudes switching his dad's body
[09:17:21] Mike: w/ some guy
[09:17:32] Mike: and the dude said that it was a body of some tramp he found on the street
[09:17:39] Mike: and then the main char saw that the body's eyes were cut out
[09:17:54] Mike: and then he was like scared and shit
[09:18:07] Mike: so then he goes to the dude's house and hew as like can i see my dad
[09:18:14] Mike: and the guy was like oh... he already got burninated sry
[09:18:37] Mike: and then the main char goes outside the burnination palce and tries to look in and sees them about to burninate the body of the tramp w/o eyes
[09:18:45] Mike: but then the dude's get a phone call and gets angry
[09:18:49] Mike: and closes the window shades
[09:18:56] Mike: and so the main char runs away
[09:19:00] Mike: and they start to search for him
[09:19:13] Mike: and he run and finds this cat who like leads him into the sewers
[09:19:18] Mike: and he finds this assortment of skulls
[09:19:22] Mike: that are like all sorts of animals
[09:19:25] Mike: and a baby human
[09:19:27] Mike: skull
[09:19:37] Mike: and then he is like wtfx0r and runs away and goes home to find his dog
[09:19:58] Mike: but he can't find his dog but finds a gun on his bed that his dad apparently bught 2 yrs ago 3 days after his mom died in a car crash
[09:20:02] Mike: and he was like oh shit this is scary
[09:20:06] Mike: and he has 2 messages
[09:20:09] Mike: one is like some dude breathing
[09:20:13] Mike: and then humming and is scary as hell
[09:20:20] Mike: and the other is from this nurse on the hospital that he knows really well
[09:20:26] Mike: that says she needs to see him very fast
[09:20:30] Mike: and then he finds his dog outside
[09:20:34] Mike: digging holes and being insanee
[09:20:35] Mike: and he is scared
[09:20:43] Mike: but thne his dog like senses a person in the house
[09:20:48] Mike: and gets scared and tries to run
[09:20:52] Mike: so he follows the dog and runs too
[09:20:58] Mike: and then he goes to the nurse's house
[09:21:06] Mike: and hse likke HOLY SHIZNIT BIZNATCH THE WORLD IS GONNA END]
[09:21:10] Mike: and hes like wtfx0r
[09:21:15] Mike: and she lis like ong i have ot tell u thinjz
[09:21:19] Mike: and he is like ong ok
[09:21:28] Mike: and then she is lke ok so it started w/ the monkey...
[09:21:33] Mike: and he was like wtfx0r lolz monkey
[09:21:38] Mike: and then he was like oh... that sounds scary
[09:21:46] Mike: and she was like i was baking cookies
[09:21:48] Mike: ad few yrs ago
[09:21:50] Mike: and i turned around
[09:21:54] Mike: and ther ewas a monkey on the table
[09:21:56] Mike: and it was eating an orange
[09:21:58] Mike: and i was scared
[09:22:02] Mike: so i tried to leave
[09:22:08] Mike: and then i tried to poke it w/ a broom
[09:22:11] Mike: but it went ripshit
[09:22:17] Mike: and scared the fuckx0r out of her
[09:22:28] Mike: and she tried to get a knife from the drawer
[09:22:36] Mike: but it sensed what she was trying to do and threw apples at her
[09:22:39] Mike: and hit her in the mouth
[09:22:41] Mike: and she blooded
[09:22:44] Mike: and her husband came home
[09:22:45] Mike: and was like
[09:22:48] Mike: OH SHIZNIT
[09:22:51] Mike: and pulled out a gun
[09:22:54] Mike: and pointed it at the monkey
[09:23:00] Mike: and she was like WTFX0R WHY DO U HAVE A GUN
[09:23:08] Mike: and he was like call my peeps down at work
[09:23:11] Mike: and she was like wtf ok
[09:23:20] Mike: and he was like yo nigga bring gunz
[09:23:33] Mike: and they brought tranqs and the monkey was like
[09:23:36] Mike: oh fuck
[09:23:41] Mike: and just went to sleep
[09:23:46] Mike: and then they shot it w/ tranqs and took it away
[09:23:54] Mike: and then her husband was like did it touch u
[09:23:57] Mike: and she was like no
[09:23:58] Mike: and hew as like
[09:23:59] Mike: oh
[09:24:04] Mike: yea we're gonna hvae to steralize u
[09:24:07] Mike: and they cut out her ovaries
[09:24:12] Mike: and she was liek WTFX0R NOOOOO ONG WTF
[09:24:24] Mike: and then the main char is like wait wtf why it was just a crazy bitch ass monkey
[09:24:32] Mike: and she was like no
[09:24:36] Mike: and he was like what was wrong w/ it
[09:24:37] Mike: and she was like
[09:24:39] Mike: it wasn't a monkey
[09:24:42] Mike: it just appeared to be a monkey
[09:24:46] Mike: and he s like then what was it
[09:24:47] Mike: nad shes like
[09:24:49] Mike: but it was a monkey....
[09:24:55] Mike: and he is like wtf ok....
[09:25:04] Mike: and then she is like i will tell u more things but i have to go get something
[09:25:07] Mike: so he is like ok pants
[09:25:14] Mike: and she leaves to get something and he hears her screaming
[09:25:27] Mike: and then he finds her in the bathroom
[09:25:32] Mike: w/ her head bent backwards into the toilet
[09:25:36] Mike: and she shat herself
[09:25:51] Mike: and she was slashed and fucked up in the throat and things
[09:25:54] Mike: and he was like ONG WTFX0R

[09:26:05] Mike: and he took the gun and went to look for the killer
[09:26:12] Mike: and he sees an open window and hes like the kilelr must have lfet
[09:26:21] Mike: then he turns around and the lgihts are on in the hallway
[09:26:25] Mike: and he is liek WTFX0R
[09:26:32] Mike: and ttakes the gun out and now he is looking for hte killer
[09:26:34] Mike: it is a scary ass book
[09:28:10] Mike: kevin are you there
[09:28:16] Mike: omg did they get u too
[09:28:20] Mike: wait if u killed kevin..
[09:28:22] Mike: are you reading this
[09:28:23] Mike: OMG
[09:28:28] Mike: YOU ARE AT KEVIN'S HOUSE
[09:28:29] Mike: AHHH
[09:28:31] Mike: YOURE GONNA KILL ME NEXT
[09:28:40] Mike: ONG PLAWCKS NO I WILL GIVE U ALL MY POKEMON CARDS
[09:28:42] Mike: I WILL GIVE U WOW GOLD
[09:28:48] Mike: I WILL LET U JOIN MY GB GUILD
[09:28:50] Mike: PLZZZ NOOOOO

After that it was advised to him that he get a gun.

Stephen Colbert on Conan O'brien, Lord of the Rings references abound!

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert crack up

Star Wars parody from Adult Swim's Robot Chicken

About our wonderful President...

Mideast crisis drives Bush to colorful language

ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) - A microphone picked up an unaware
President Bush saying on Monday Syria should press Hezbollah to "stop
doing this shit" and that his secretary of state may go to the Middle
East soon.

Bush was talking privately to British Prime Minister
Tony Blair during a lunch at the Group of Eight summit in St Petersburg
about an upsurge of violence in the Middle East, not realizing a
microphone was recording what he said.

"I think Condi (Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice) is going to go pretty soon," Bush said.

Blair replied: "Right, that's all that matters, it will take some time to get that together."

The two leaders also referred to an offer by Blair to help. Blair said Rice has "got to succeed" if she goes out to the region.

Bush
replied: "What they need to do it to get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop
doing this shit." Shortly afterwards Blair noticed the microphone and
hastily switched it off, but not before the recording had reached news
media.

Much of the G8 summit has been devoted to discussing the
Middle East crisis centering on Lebanese Hezbollah militant attacks on
Israel and Israeli bombing of Lebanon. Washington and its allies say
Hezbollah is backed by Syria.

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

About the MIddle East

The Road to War






We could all be in deep, deep trouble







Jason Burke and Julie Flint in Bierut, Inigo Gilmore in Nahariya, Conal Urquhart in Gaza and Patrick Wintour in St Petersburg
Sunday July 16, 2006
The Observer

Beirut
was silent yesterday morning. Smoke still hung in the blue sky like a
vague threat, but after a night of violence - physical and verbal - the
port city waited. A few shops in the centre warily raised their steel
shutters, but the Shia Muslim areas in the south of the city were
empty. Occasional cars worked their way around the rubble left by the
air strikes of the evening before, some packed with families leaving,
others filled with families going to funerals. Then came the blasts in
the middle of the day, loud enough to rattle windows across the entire
city. Plumes of flame and smoke spouted once more above the tattered
buildings. And everyone knew that there would soon be more cars full of
refugees, and more cars heading to funerals.

There
were many funerals last week, and this weekend there were more. At
least 13 Lebanese villagers, including women and children, were killed
yesterday in an Israeli air strike on a convoy of vehicles evacuating a
village near the southern border. And few expect the funerals to stop
soon. Yesterday Israeli and Hizbollah leaders declared 'open war';
bodies of four Israeli sailors were retrieved from a warship struck by
a Hizbollah drone; beyond Beirut, bombing continued in the Hizbollah
heartland of southern Lebanon and even reached the Syrian border; and
dozens of Hizbollah rockets continued to fall randomly on civilian
areas in northern Israel, reaching as far south as Tiberias, some 40km
inside Israel's borders, causing minor injuries and provoking panic.
Further south, though the worst violence of the week had ebbed, the
Gaza Strip, from where rockets have been fired into Israeli towns,
remained tense, with reports of an Israeli air strike and two dead.

And
as the violence continued, so the shock waves around the region and the
world grew deeper. The crisis, which has pushed oil prices to a
historic high of $78 per barrel and weakened stock markets around the
world, dominated the agenda of the G8 summit of rich nations in St
Petersburg, dividing international leaders. In the Middle East itself,
Syria and Iran, deeply implicated in the events of the past week, are
on high alert. The Egyptians, Jordanians, Turks, Saudis - and, of
course, the Iraqis - are all very nervous. America is increasingly
involved. Diplomats are frantically formulating plans to defuse what
one described to The Observer as 'a powder keg that could blow out all
the lights'. And all this in just five days.

The questions are
now manifold and evident; answers less so. How and why did the crisis
explode so powerfully and so quickly? What are the regional
ramifications? And what happens next?

As ever in the Middle East,
the crisis can be traced back to a variety of causes. The timeline can
start a few days ago - with a daring cross-border raid by Hizbollah
militants on Tuesday that led to the capture of two Israeli soldiers
and the deaths of eight more. Or it can start two weeks ago - with the
kidnapping of another Israeli soldier by hardline Palestinian militants
from the Hamas organisation in the Gaza Strip. Or it can start months,
years or decades ago in the myriad interwoven causes that link Israel's
withdrawal from south Lebanon in 2000, the development (with Iranian
assistance) of the Hizbollah militia in response to Israel's invasion
of Lebanon 18 years earlier, and even the Iranian revolution of 1979,
or the Arab-Israeli wars of 1973 and 1967.

For Ehud Olmert, the
recently elected Prime Minister of Israel, the crisis started on
Wednesday with Hizbollah's cross-border attack. It should have been
expected. The militia's leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, has repeatedly
said that it would seek to capture Israeli soldiers on or near the
border, and has been trying to do so since moving back into the
frontier zone following the Israeli withdrawal six years ago. The army
was 'caught with its pants down', said one Israeli commentator last
week.

As soon as Olmert - said by associates to be 'incandescent'
with rage - heard of the incident, he called an emergency meeting of
the inner security cabinet. Around the table with the right-wing Prime
Minister, who leads the Kadima party, were his senior ministers and
leaders of the other parties, including the profoundly orthodox Shas,
who comprise the ruling coalition. The politicians were briefed by the
head of the army, Lieutenant-General Dan Halutz, the head of the
internal security service, the head of Mossad, and a series of other
military advisers.

Halutz's plan mixed various aims. There was
little real hope that the pressure on Hizbollah might force the
immediate return of the soldiers. But a land, air and sea blockade
would prevent Hizbollah receiving supplies and prevent the militia
evacuating the hostages to Syria. A tight cordon coupled with air
strikes would allow the destruction of Hizbollah's military capacity.
In addition, the physical damage wreaked by the bombing would force the
government of Lebanon (and the international community) to act against
the Islamic militia, hopefully implementing a recent UN Security
Council resolution calling for Hizbollah's disarmament and the
positioning of Lebanese troops on the southern border. Civilian
suffering leading to anger against Hizbollah would, the politicians and
military men knew, force the Lebanese, or the international community,
or both, to act rapidly. The plan was accepted unanimously. 'If our
security and economy is being hit,' said one minister, 'so shall
Lebanon's.'

Their responses were, given Israel's history,
relatively predictable. The Jewish state's strategic doctrine has
always relied, along with massive foreign aid, on a powerful, ruthless
and immediate response to any threat. As a final bonus, the Hizbollah
attack offered an opportunity to restore the 'deterrence factor' - a
key aim of the hawkish chief of staff who has a significant influence
on a government that contains fewer former soldiers than almost any
other previous Israeli administration. 'There has been a progressive
decline in deterrence over the past six years and the defence
establishment want to re-establish it,' said Jonathan Spyer, a former
adviser on international relations to the Israeli government and a
research fellow at the Global Research in International Affairs Centre
in Hertzeliya. 'They see it as a very serious big boy's game.'

Crucially,
Halutz's plan was not new. Indeed, according to Gerald Steinberg,
professor of political studies at Bar Ilan University, it had been
sitting 'on the shelf' for some time. 'The scenario that has been
followed has been worked on by the military for several years,'
Steinberg said. 'Sharon was briefed on it when he was Prime Minister
and it is probable that Olmert knew about it.' Yet the more hardline
Israelis were not the only ones acting according to a script. Indeed,
the script may well have been written elsewhere: in Beirut, Gaza,
Damascus and Tehran.

On Thursday morning, the people of the
village of al-Dweir, a few miles from the Israel-Lebanon border,
gathered at the mosque for a family funeral. Rockets launched by
Hizbollah fighters could be heard echoing off the low hills of the
border area. Overhead, Israeli jets and drones circled unheeded by a
crowd full of Hizbollah members and supporters. Before long, the yellow
and green flag of the Shia group was fluttering.

Dr Yousef Akkash
was among the mourners. His brother, killed along with his wife and
eight children earlier in the day when Israeli planes obliterated their
home, was possibly a member of Hizbollah, but Akkash was not sure. 'I
hope he was,' Akkash said. 'If he was engaged in Hizbollah activities,
then it was his fate.' But it was a fate that lay in the hands of
shadowy men in different countries.

Israeli diplomats last week
insisted on an 'axis of evil' linking Hamas in the Gaza Strip,
Hizbollah, Damascus and Tehran. 'They are united to destabilise the
situation and act against the wills of most people and governments in
the region to progress a peace process,' said Barnea Hassid, an Israeli
spokesman.

The argument here is simple. The past few months have
seen several developments that have displeased those who stand to
benefit from continued strife. There has been an improvement in
relations between moderate Palestinian leaders and Olmert, who is
committed to a disengagement of Israeli forces and settlers from the
West Bank and hints that even elements of Hamas might be shifting
towards a more pragmatic position. In addition, the Syrians, forced to
leave Lebanon last year, have become marginalised and Hizbollah has
begun to lose credibility. In addition, Tehran is under huge
international pressure because of its nuclear programme. Nothing would
benefit hardliners in Gaza, Lebanon, Damascus and Tehran more than a
nasty and bloody war. 'It is a good thing for Damascus and Tehran,'
said Spyer. 'They are largely behind what we are now seeing..'

However,
experts point out that there is little history of contact between
Hizbollah and the Sunni Muslim Hamas. And though a senior Hamas
militant in Damascus is suspected of running the kidnapping of the
Israeli soldier in Gaza, that does not mean, says one Western
intelligence source, that the Hizbollah strike last week was part of a
co-ordinated strategy. And the relationship between Iran and Hizbollah
may be more nuanced than often thought. 'The Iranians are in trouble
over the nuclear programme, and the Syrians are under pressure, too,
and chaos and diversions benefit both,' said Nadim Shehadi, of London's
Chatham House think tank. 'But Hizbollah is more linked to Tehran than
Damascus.'

An axis may exist, but in a rougher, more informal
form than the tight-knit institutional connections seen by the Israelis
and their allies. 'If you ignore state borders, you can see a broad
anti-American and anti-Israeli front, with Iran leading it. They are
playing a clever game. The Iranians are playing chess: their opponents
are playing poker.'

One critical question is the degree of
support that Hizbollah, which has a well-armed militia and a large
social programme, has among Lebanon's poor Shias. The consensus is that
the militia had been losing support before the crisis. That may be one
reason for Wednesday's attack, even if the reaction of the Israelis was
greater than foreseen. 'Hizbollah was being squeezed,' said Steinberg.
'It was "use-it-or-lose-it" time.'

Initially, it looked as if
those tactics might have worked. On Wednesday night, as news of the
kidnapping broke, teenagers on motorbikes rode up and down Beirut
seafront waving the party's yellow flag and honking horns. Even after
bombardment chewed up the highway to Damascus and put the airport out
of action, celebrants were setting off firecrackers. But as the extent
of Israel's onslaught on Lebanon's infrastructure became clear, the
atmosphere changed.

'In 1982, I was anti-Israel,' presidential
candidate Chibli Mallat told The Observer. 'But this offensive has been
provoked by a blatant violation of the demarcation line and the
abduction of soldiers. I cannot put the blame on the Israelis. They did
not start it.'

Few Lebanese accept Hizbollah's claim that its aim
was to barter the release of the handful of Lebanese still held in
Israeli jails: they blame Hizbollah for plunging Lebanon back into war.
Everywhere there is widespread recognition that, even if the Lebanese
government, with its pro-Syrian President and predominantly anti-Syrian
administration and parliament, wanted to rein in Hizbollah, it could
not. 'The Israelis blame the Lebanese government for not controlling
Hizbollah,' said architect Simone Kosremelli. 'Is Italy able to control
the Mafia? Could England control the IRA? Israel must know that 50
years of conflict have not brought a solution. There must be another
way.'

If there is, it will almost certainly involve the
international community. Vladimir Putin, Russia's leader, had hoped to
use this weekend's G8 summit to showcase the economic progress in his
nation. Officially, education and the fight against HIV head the
agenda, but attention has focused on the Middle East - and divisions
between the summiteers. The splits echoed those over Iraq three years
ago, with France's Jacques Chirac leading condemnation of the Israelis,
European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso saying that the use
of force by Israel was 'disproportionate', Putin calling for the
Israeli response to be more 'balanced' and President Bush avoiding any
condemnation of Israel, saying 'the best way to stop the violence is
for Hizbollah to lay down its arms and to stop attacking.'

However,
with a meeting this weekend of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo
disintegrating in mutual recriminations, the EU lacking a clear
strategy and the UN lacking credibility, the Americans may hold the
real key. 'The Israelis tend to go as far as they can, as quickly as
they can, to make their point and strengthen their negotiating position
before the international pressure on them gets too much to bear,' said
one Western diplomat. 'The US can bring 10 times as much pressure to
bear as anyone else.'

Bush has so far largely left discussions
with Israeli leaders to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and
National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. Rice, after conversations
with UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, has backed the dispatch of a UN
team to the region to attempt to negotiate a truce, but few believe it
has much chance of immediate success.

A key question is whether
Israel will escalate its military response to Hizbollah's continued
provocation - yesterday rockets fell deeper and deeper inside Israel. A
spokesman refused to rule out a ground offensive, though casualties
would be high and the political fall-out of a botched operation
potentially devastating. However it may be that a negotiated settlement
- exchanging prisoners in Israeli jails as part of a more general
agreement that would see the return of the captured Israeli troops and
Hizbollah pulling back from the frontier - is possible. Though Israeli
demands for the disarmament of Hizbollah may be unrealistic in the
short term, they may not be in the long term.

However, it may be
that a fuse has been lit. 'The nightmare scenario is war in Gaza,
widespread war against the Israelis in Lebanon and between factions,
Syria and Iran being dragged into the conflict and a steady escalation
from there to who knows where, widespread conflict, oil prices through
the ceiling, bombs going off all over the place' said the diplomat.
'You don't usually see the nightmare scenario evolve in the Middle East
but, if it does, we are all in deep, deep trouble.'

Perhaps the
most hopeful sign is that the vast bulk of the Lebanese and Israeli
populations still do not wish harm on one another, though tensions have
heightened antagonisms and, in Israel at least, provoked a strong
pro-war solidarity.

During a rocket barrage on Friday afternoon,
a missile landed in a kibbutz on the edge of the northern Israeli town
of Nahariya. As the community had already been almost entirely
evacuated, there were no casualties.

Avi Hever, a long-time
resident, was one of just four men who chose to stay behind after the
first missiles landed last week. 'I was watching TV when I heard the
missile go over the house and explode,' he said. 'I went into a safe
place between the two walls and the house was shaking all over. Its
unpleasant, shocking; it makes you freeze.'

Pointing to empty
rooms, he explained that he has sent his wife and two children to his
family in Tel Aviv, an exodus mirroring that of Lebanese civilians
further north. The Observer asked if he sympathised with those caught
up in the same conflict living just a few miles away over the border.

'It's
quite hard to feel empathy at the moment, when just 10 minutes ago a
rocket hit here and I was in danger. But empathy will come,' he said,
glancing across the neat houses, with their groomed front lawns, the
Star of David flags flapping defiantly from the rooftops. 'We do want
peace and the Lebanese want the same as us. But it's up to them now;
they have to choose which way they want to organise their life, with
Hizbollah or without it.'

Outside the village of Damour on
Lebanon's coast, holes that are dozens of feet wide have shattered a
key highway overpass that connects Beirut to the south of the country.
It is also the only way out of the war zone for many of south Lebanon's
residents, who have been clambering over the piles of rubble and around
the craters on their way to Beirut or the northern Bekaa Valley and
safety.

'This is a fight between Hizbollah and Israel,' said Umm
Mohammed, 36, a Shia woman from outside Tyre. 'Why must they hurt
civilians? I have small children.' And she looked nervously to the sky.

Key Players of the Conflict

Sheik Hassan Nasrallah: Chief of Hizbollah in Lebanon
Has close links to Syria and Iran. Told Israel: 'You wanted an open war and we are heading for an open war'.

Bashar Assad: President of Syria

Denied being behind the Hizbollah attack. Syria's relations with
Lebanon strained since last year's killing of former Lebanese premier
Rafif Hariri that led to withdrawal of Syrian troops.

Fouad Siniora: Lebanese Prime Minister Critic of Syria

but he has been so far unable to disarm Hizbollah, a group he calls
'legitimate resistance'. In a difficult position with two Hizbollah
ministers in his cabinet.

Ehud Olmert: Israeli Prime Minister

Said he would agree to a ceasefire if Hizbollah returned the two
captured soldiers and stopped firing rockets but has rejected calls for
restraint from UN's Kofi Annan.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: President of Iran

Iran was where Hizbollah was founded and it retains close links. Tehran
warns of a 'fierce response' if Israel strikes at Syria.

Countdown to Crisis

25 January: Hamas defeats moderate Fatah in Palestinian elections.

10 April: EU severs political contact and suspends direct aid to Palestinian government.

9 June:
Hamas calls off 16- month military truce after seven members of a
Palestinian family are killed on a Gaza beach by Israel shell. Four
days later a family of nine die in Israeli missile strike in Gaza.

25 June: Palestinian militants launch raid into Israel, killing two Israeli soldiers and kidnapping Cpl Gilad Shalit.

29 June: Israel troops, having pushed into Gaza, detain Hamas lawmakers and cabinet members. Air strikes.

12 July:
Hizbolla captures two Israeli soldiers and kills eight. Israel calls it
'act of war' and widens Gaza offensive, killing 24 civilians. Air
strikes destroy 10 bridges in Lebanon, and hit power stations and a
water facility.

13 July: Israel bombs Palestinian Foreign Ministry and Bierut airport. Navy blockades Lebanese ports. The US

14 July:
Israel bombs Beirut-Damascus road and Shia suburbs of Bierut: 67
Lebanese civilians dead. Hizbollah launches 130 missiles at Israel,
killing at least two civilians. Israeli ship is hit by an explosives-
filled drone, four dead.

15 July: In the village of Marwaheen - 500 yards from the Israeli border, an air strike kills up to 13.

About the Government...

I believe this little gem sums it up...

    "Hoekstra didn't spell it out in his note. But what he was saying was that he believed a CIA cabal has tried to undercut Bush regarding the war in Iraq--that CIA officials opposed to the war plotted against the president and sought to undercut his case for war by leaking stories indicating that the intelligence cited by Bush and his aides on Iraq's WMDs and purported connections to al Qaeda was not that strong. (Joe Wilson's trip to Niger and subsequent op-ed piece declaring there had been nothing to the charge Iraq was seeking uranium there, the rightwing theory goes, was part of a deliberate CIA conspiracy against the White House.) Hoekstra also is probably thinking of the leaks about CIA secret prisons and the agency's clandestine renditions of detainees to nations where abusive interrogation occurs."

-http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?pid=100520

About Fraud...

From <li><a href="http://www.newnetworks.com/ShortSCANDALSummary.htm"></a></li>

The case is simple: Do you have a 45 Mbps,
bi-directional service to your home, paying around $40? Do
you have 500+ channels and can choose any competitive
service? You paid an estimated $2000 for this product even
though you did not receive it and it may never be available.
Do you want your money back and the companies held
accountable?



Background: Starting in the early 1990's, the
Clinton-Gore Administration had aggressive plans to create
the "National Infrastructure Initiative" to rewire ALL of
America with fiber optic wiring, replacing the 100 year old
copper wire. The Bell companies — SBC,
Verizon, BellSouth and Qwest, claimed that they would step
up to the plate and rewire homes, schools, libraries,
government agencies, businesses and hospitals, etc. if they
received financial incentives.

The Commitment:

• By 2006, 86 million households
  should have already been wired with a fiber (and coax),
  wire, capable of at least 45 Mbps in both directions, and
  could handle 500+ channels.
• Universal Broadband: This wiring was
  to be done in rich and poor neighborhoods, in rural,
  urban and suburban areas equally.
• Open to ALL Competition: These
  networks were to be open to ALL competitors, not a
  closed-in network or deployed only where the phone
  company desired.
• Each State: By 2006, 75% of the
  state of New Jersey was to be wired, Pennsylvania was to
  have 50% of households by 2004, California to have 5
  million households by 2000, Texas claimed all schools,
  libraries, hospitals.…Virtually every state had
  commitments.
• Massive Financial Incentives: In
  exchange for building these networks, the Bell companies
  ALL received changes in state laws that gave these them
  excessive profits, tax savings, and other perks to be
  used in building these networks.
• This was not DSL, which travels over
  the old copper wiring and did not require new
  regulations.
• This is not Verizon's FIOS or
  SBC’s Lightspeed fiber optics,
  which are slower, can't handle 500 channels, are not open
  to competition, and are not being deployed
  equitably.
• This was NOT fiber somewhere in the network
  ether, but directly to homes.

The Harms and Outcome

• Costs to Customers — We
  estimate that $206 billion dollars in excess profits and
  tax deductions were collected —
  over $2000 per household. (This is the low
  estimate.)
• Cost to the Country — About $5 trillion
  dollars to the economy. America lost a decade of
  technological innovation and economic growth, about $500
  billion annually.
• Cost to the Country — America is now
  16th in the world in broadband. While Korea and
  Japan have 40-100 Mbps at cheap prices, America is still
  at kilobyte speeds.
• The New Digital Divide
  — The phone companies current plans
  are to pick and choose where and when they want to deploy
  fiber services, if at all.
• Competitor Close Out
  — SBC, BellSouth and
  Verizon now claim that they can control who uses the
  networks and at what price, impacting everything from
  VOIP and municipality roll outs to new services from Ebay
  and Google.

The Truth: This is a Fraud Case

• Fraud: There is a dark secret —
  the networks couldn't be built at the time the
  commitments were made and are still not available. If
  someone pays thousands of dollars for a service and
  doesn't get it, isn't that fraud?
• Collusion and Cover-up: TELE-TV and
  Americast, the Bell companies' fiber optic front groups,
  spent about $1 billion and were designed to make America
  believe these deployments were real in order to pass the
  Telecom Act of 1996 and enter long distance. How did
  every major phone company in America not know that these
  fiber-based services couldn't be built and were able to
  defraud over 40 states?
• The mergers killed fiber optic deployments in
  over 26 states and harmed competition. With
  every merger, the phone companies simply dropped all
  state commitments and harmed every state they merged
  with. Case in point: Verizon cut deployments to 13 states
  during the NYNEX-Bell Atlantic merger, not to mention
  GTE's 28 state deployments. SBC did the same in all 13 of
  its states, from California to Illinois. Worse, the
  mergers were based on the companies competing with each
  other and there is NO evidence they ever did any serious
  wireline residential competition.
• The Regulators Killed Competition and
  Broadband. Over the last 4 years, instead of
  continuing competition as ordered by the Telecom Act of
  1996, the FCC has rewritten the laws close down Internet
  Service Providers (ISPs) that brought America to the
  Internet, as well as virtually all local competition.
  AT&T and MCI couldn't compete because they were
  regulated out of business and thus were sold off.
• Distortion of the Truth by the FCC.
  Virtually every piece of documentation presented in this
  work is missing from the FCC's Advanced Network Reports.
  The FCC defines broadband as 200 kilobytes per second in
  one direction — 225 times slower than what was
  promised in 1992.
• Cross-Subsidization — Instead
  of spending the money on these networks, the Bell
  companies used the money to enter long distance, rollout
  wireless and the inferior DSL services. The Bells also
  lost over $20 billion overseas and paid executives over a
  billion in stock options during the mergers.
• Bait and Switch — Customers
  paid for a fiber optic wire and got DSL over the old
  copper wiring — it's like ordering a Ferrari and
  getting a bicycle.

20 Year Analysis of Revenues, Profits,
Expenditures: This book is based on a 20 year
analysis of Bell-supplied data, Census Data and Business
Week. Since 1984::

• Revenues are up 128%.
• Employees are down 65%, Construction is down
  60%.
• $92.5 billion is missing in network upgrades.
• Profits based on failed fiber plans up 188% as
  compared to other utilities.

Teletruth has filed a complaint with the Federal Trade
Commission, (FTC) to investigate the claims presented; the
book is the data for our complaint.

About that time again...

This blog is almost a year old!

Though it hasn't maintained the most stringent of update cycles it still has served my ends dutifully and with loyalty. In fact this blog has sacrificed a lot just to keep me happy. For instance those links on the right are a pestilence of Romanized English script, each character a locust in a hyperlink wave of desolation. But has Fiat Lux ever woken me up with an electrostatic shock in the middle of the night to complain about the hordes of characters cluttering its otherwise unblemished face? well, yes, but im pretty sure it was just his old age that made him do it. You know how old things get, senile and lost. Well that about wraps up what i meant to say, Happy Days!

(^)
|
|
((=###
Can anyone see that birthday candle?

****UPDATE****


Taken from Forbes.com:


New York -

A federal judge dealt a blow to AT&T Wednesday, ruling that secret documents supposedly linking the telecom giant with a U.S. government domestic spying program can be used in a lawsuit.

The suit, filed in January by the privacy watchdog group Electronic Frontier Foundation, accuses AT&T (nyse: T - news - people ) of handing over customer data to the National Security Agency even though the federal agency did not provide a court order. Last week, USA Today published a widely discussed story that said AT&T, Verizon (nyse: VZ - news - people ) and Bell South (nyse: BLS - news - people ) had offered up millions of customer records to the NSA. The lawsuit, which says AT&T has been handing over call records from as early as 2001, makes broader claims, arguing that the company has provided the NSA with the content of many calls.

The documents in the AT&T case, which were given to the EFF by a former phone company employee, are sealed and will remain so for the immediate future. U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker told AT&T lawyers, who had argued that the documents contain trade secrets, to work with the EFF to pare down sensitive information so the files could be viewed in open court.

AT&T said it supported Walker's decision to keep the documents sealed; the company didn't address the EFF allegations directly but said AT&T had acted legally. "There has been a lot of speculation on this issue, but the fact is, AT&T does not provide customer information to law enforcement authorities or government agencies without legal authorization," said AT&T spokesman Marc Bien in a written statement. "We have an obligation to assist law enforcement and other government agencies responsible for protecting the public welfare, whether it be [the welfare of] an individual or the security interests of the entire nation."

Both Verizon and BellSouth issued statements this week denying the accusations. "Verizon cannot and will not comment on the [alleged NSA surveillance] program," the company said in a written statement Tuesday. "Verizon cannot and will not confirm or deny whether it has any relationship to it. That said, media reports made claims about Verizon that are simply false."

BellSouth said it had addressed the newspaper's claims with an internal fact-finding review: "Based on our review to date, we have confirmed no such contract exists, and we have not provided bulk customer calling records to the NSA."

But the telephone companies' denials give them plenty of wiggle room. "I think they're very wisely being cautious about what they say and preserving their options," says Rosalind Allen, a Washington, D.C., telecom attorney with Holland & Knight. "In fact, we don't know what really happened. We're not sure still what kind of interaction they did have with the NSA. Just because they say, 'We didn't disclose all customer records' ... Did you disclose some records?"

The phone companies now have multiple legal battles to contend with. On Wednesday, attorneys added AT&T and BellSouth to a class action filed last week against Verizon, accusing the company of violating customers' rights.

And the Electronic Privacy Information Center also filed a complaint Wednesday with Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin, asking the agency to investigate whether the telcos shared private information with the NSA, a potential violation of the Communications Act.

The next hearing in the EFF-AT&T case is set for June 23 at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, when Judge Walker will hear dismissal motions from both AT&T and the U.S. Department of Justice.

Taken from Wired News' story on the Electronic Frontier Foundation's class action lawsuit against AT&T: Testimony of ex-AT&T technician


AT&T's Implementation of NSA Spying on American Citizens

31 December 2005

I wrote the following document in 2004 when it became clear to me that AT&T, at the behest of the National Security Agency, had illegally installed secret computer gear designed to spy on internet traffic. At the time I thought this was an outgrowth of the notorious Total Information Awareness program which was attacked by defenders of civil liberties. But now it's been revealed by The New York Times that the spying program is vastly bigger and was directly authorized by President Bush, as he himself has now admitted, in flagrant violation of specific statutes and constitutional protections for civil liberties. I am presenting this information to facilitate the dismantling of this dangerous Orwellian project.
AT&T Deploys Government Spy Gear on WorldNet Network

-- 16 January, 2004

In 2003 AT&T built "secret rooms" hidden deep in the bowels of its central offices in various cities, housing computer gear for a government spy operation which taps into the company's popular WorldNet service and the entire internet. These installations enable the government to look at every individual message on the internet and analyze exactly what people are doing. Documents showing the hardwire installation in San Francisco suggest that there are similar locations being installed in numerous other cities.

The physical arrangement, the timing of its construction, the government-imposed secrecy surrounding it, and other factors all strongly suggest that its origins are rooted in the Defense Department's Total Information Awareness (TIA) program which brought forth vigorous protests from defenders of constitutionally protected civil liberties last year:
"As the director of the effort, Vice Adm. John M. Poindexter, has described the system in Pentagon documents and in speeches, it will provide intelligence analysts and law enforcement officials with instant access to information from internet mail and calling records to credit card and banking transactions and travel documents, without a search warrant." The New York Times, 9 November 2002

To mollify critics, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) spokesmen have repeatedly asserted that they are only conducting "research" using "artificial synthetic data" or information from "normal DOD intelligence channels" and hence there are "no U.S. citizen privacy implications" (Department of Defense, Office of the Inspector General report on TIA, December 12, 2003). They also changed the name of the program to "Terrorism Information Awareness" to make it more politically palatable. But feeling the heat, Congress made a big show of allegedly cutting off funding for TIA in late 2003, and the political fallout resulted in Adm. Poindexter's abrupt resignation last August. However, the fine print reveals that Congress eliminated funding only for "the majority of the TIA components," allowing several "components" to continue (DOD, ibid). The essential hardware elements of a TIA-type spy program are being surreptitiously slipped into "real world" telecommunications offices.

In San Francisco the "secret room" is Room 641A at 611 Folsom Street, the site of a large SBC phone building, three floors of which are occupied by AT&T. High-speed fiber-optic circuits come in on the 8th floor and run down to the 7th floor where they connect to routers for AT&T's WorldNet service, part of the latter's vital "Common Backbone." In order to snoop on these circuits, a special cabinet was installed and cabled to the "secret room" on the 6th floor to monitor the information going through the circuits. (The location code of the cabinet is 070177.04, which denotes the 7th floor, aisle 177 and bay 04.) The "secret room" itself is roughly 24-by-48 feet, containing perhaps a dozen cabinets including such equipment as Sun servers and two Juniper routers, plus an industrial-size air conditioner.

The normal work force of unionized technicians in the office are forbidden to enter the "secret room," which has a special combination lock on the main door. The telltale sign of an illicit government spy operation is the fact that only people with security clearance from the National Security Agency can enter this room. In practice this has meant that only one management-level technician works in there. Ironically, the one who set up the room was laid off in late 2003 in one of the company's endless "downsizings," but he was quickly replaced by another.

Plans for the "secret room" were fully drawn up by December 2002, curiously only four months after Darpa started awarding contracts for TIA. One 60-page document, identified as coming from "AT&T Labs Connectivity & Net Services" and authored by the labs' consultant Mathew F. Casamassima, is titled Study Group 3, LGX/Splitter Wiring, San Francisco and dated 12/10/02. (See sample PDF 1-4.) This document addresses the special problem of trying to spy on fiber-optic circuits. Unlike copper wire circuits which emit electromagnetic fields that can be tapped into without disturbing the circuits, fiber-optic circuits do not "leak" their light signals. In order to monitor such communications, one has to physically cut into the fiber somehow and divert a portion of the light signal to see the information.

This problem is solved with "splitters" which literally split off a percentage of the light signal so it can be examined. This is the purpose of the special cabinet referred to above: Circuits are connected into it, the light signal is split into two signals, one of which is diverted to the "secret room." The cabinet is totally unnecessary for the circuit to perform -- in fact it introduces problems since the signal level is reduced by the splitter -- its only purpose is to enable a third party to examine the data flowing between sender and recipient on the internet.

The above-referenced document includes a diagram (PDF 3) showing the splitting of the light signal, a portion of which is diverted to "SG3 Secure Room," i.e., the so-called "Study Group" spy room. Another page headlined "Cabinet Naming" (PDF 2) lists not only the "splitter" cabinet but also the equipment installed in the "SG3" room, including various Sun devices, and Juniper M40e and M160 "backbone" routers. PDF file 4 shows one of many tables detailing the connections between the "splitter" cabinet on the 7th floor (location 070177.04) and a cabinet in the "secret room" on the 6th floor (location 060903.01). Since the San Francisco "secret room" is numbered 3, the implication is that there are at least several more in other cities (Seattle, San Jose, Los Angeles and San Diego are some of the rumored locations), which likely are spread across the United States.

One of the devices in the "Cabinet Naming" list is particularly revealing as to the purpose of the "secret room": a Narus STA 6400. Narus is a 7-year-old company which, because of its particular niche, appeals not only to businessmen (it is backed by AT&T, JP Morgan and Intel, among others) but also to police, military and intelligence officials. Last November 13-14, for instance, Narus was the "Lead Sponsor" for a technical conference held in McLean, Virginia, titled "Intelligence Support Systems for Lawful Interception and Internet Surveillance." Police officials, FBI and DEA agents, and major telecommunications companies eager to cash in on the "war on terror" had gathered in the hometown of the CIA to discuss their special problems. Among the attendees were AT&T, BellSouth, MCI, Sprint and Verizon. Narus founder, Dr. Ori Cohen, gave a keynote speech. So what does the Narus STA 6400 do?

"The (Narus) STA Platform consists of stand-alone traffic analyzers that collect network and customer usage information in real time directly from the message.... These analyzers sit on the message pipe into the ISP (internet service provider) cloud rather than tap into each router or ISP device" (Telecommunications magazine, April 2000). A Narus press release (1 Dec., 1999) also boasts that its Semantic Traffic Analysis (STA) technology "captures comprehensive customer usage data ... and transforms it into actionable information.... (It) is the only technology that provides complete visibility for all internet applications."

To implement this scheme, WorldNet's high-speed data circuits already in service had to be rerouted to go through the special "splitter" cabinet. This was addressed in another document of 44 pages from AT&T Labs, titled "SIMS, Splitter Cut-In and Test Procedure," dated 01/13/03 (PDF 5-6). "SIMS" is an unexplained reference to the secret room. Part of this reads as follows:
"A WMS (work) Ticket will be issued by the AT&T Bridgeton Network Operation Center (NOC) to charge time for performing the work described in this procedure document....
"This procedure covers the steps required to insert optical splitters into select live Common Backbone (CBB) OC3, OC12 and OC48 optical circuits."

The NOC referred to is in Bridgeton, Missouri, and controls WorldNet operations. (As a sign that government spying goes hand-in-hand with union-busting, the entire (Communication Workers of America) Local 6377 which had jurisdiction over the Bridgeton NOC was wiped out in early 2002 when AT&T fired the union work force and later rehired them as nonunion "management" employees.) The cut-in work was performed in 2003, and since then new circuits are connected through the "splitter" cabinet.

Another "Cut-In and Test Procedure" document dated January 24, 2003, provides diagrams of how AT&T Core Network circuits were to be run through the "splitter" cabinet (PDF 7). One page lists the circuit IDs of key Peering Links which were "cut-in" in February 2003 (PDF 8), including ConXion, Verio, XO, Genuity, Qwest, PAIX, Allegiance, AboveNet, Global Crossing, C&W, UUNET, Level 3, Sprint, Telia, PSINet and Mae West. By the way, Mae West is one of two key internet nodal points in the United States (the other, Mae East, is in Vienna, Virginia). It's not just WorldNet customers who are being spied on -- it's the entire internet.

The next logical question is, what central command is collecting the data sent by the various "secret rooms"? One can only make educated guesses, but perhaps the answer was inadvertently given in the DOD Inspector General's report (cited above):

"For testing TIA capabilities, Darpa and the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM) created an operational research and development environment that uses real-time feedback. The main node of TIA is located at INSCOM (in Fort Belvoir, Virginia)…."

Among the agencies participating or planning to participate in the INSCOM "testing" are the "National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, the DOD Counterintelligence Field Activity, the U.S. Strategic Command, the Special Operations Command, the Joint Forces Command and the Joint Warfare Analysis Center." There are also "discussions" going on to bring in "non-DOD federal agencies" such as the FBI.

This is the infrastructure for an Orwellian police state. It must be shut down!

For those of you who have ignored my profile and/or away messages for the past week, there has been an ongoing congressional debate in the House over Network Neutrality. This issue is being pressed by telco lobbyists seeking legislation that would allow companies like Verizon and AT&T to give higher priority to sites that are willing to pay high fees in exchange for better service. In effect, this would create a two-tiered internet where those who cash out to the telcos would be put on a pedestal and granted immediate priority, whereas those with principles against extortion would be left in the dust with poor connection quality as the bandwidth is secured specifically for those who pay up.
As the internet stands currently, it is democratic in architecture. Every site on it is treated equally and given equal bandwidth so that everytime u go to google or your friends myspace even, your experience is roughly the same depending on the numbers of people hitting the site. Under a two tiered internet your experience will change dramatically from site to site, lets say you visit Google who has the money to pay for the best treatment, youll get the same experience you do now with pretty damn fast search results, however you stop by your myspace for a quick second and that quick second suddenly becomes five minutes waiting for the damn page to show up. Yikes. But the major concern of granting the telcos this kind of power would be their ability to control web content on the internet. Lets say your working for an advocate group such as the ACLU, perhaps Verizon has recently been drawn to court over silencing its employees who speak out about the allegations that it has been discriminant in its hiring practices(hypothetically). Now you and your colleagues in the ACLU are emailing each other, discussing your plans on filing a suit against Verizon on behalf of those employees discriminated against by the company. But wait, whats this? your service has suddenly dropped? I wonder why your ISP (Verizon) has suddenly dropped its services to you, you who pays $60 a month for premium service. This is censorship.

Today however Massachusetts congressman Ed Markey introduced onto the House floor a bill that would protect Network Neutrality and punish those who would thwart it. The Network Neutrality Act of 2006, sounds sexy. Here is the transcript of Markey's introduction of the bill:




"Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce the “Network Neutrality Act of 2006.” Joining me today as original cosponsors of this important legislation are Rep. Rick Boucher, Rep. Anna Eshoo and Rep. Jay Inslee.

Broadband networks, Mr. Speaker, are the lifeblood of our emerging digital economy. These broadband networks also hold the promise of promoting innovation in various markets and technologies, creating jobs, and furthering education. The world-wide leadership that the U.S. provides in high technology is directly related to the government-driven policies over decades which have ensured that telecommunications networks are open to all lawful uses and all users. The Internet, which is accessible to more and more Americans with every day that goes by on such broadband networks, was also founded upon an open architecture protocol and as a result it has provided low barriers to entry for web-based content, applications, and services.


Recent decisions by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and court interpretations, however, put these aspects of broadband networks and the Internet in jeopardy. The corrosion of historic policies of nondiscrimination by the imposition of bottlenecks by broadband network owners endanger economic growth, innovation, job creation, and First Amendment freedom of expression on such networks. Broadband network owners should not be able to determine who can and who cannot offer services over broadband networks or over the Internet. The detrimental effect to the digital economy would be quite severe if such conduct were permitted and became widespread.

This network neutrality bill has essentially three parts. The first part articulates overall broadband and network neutrality goals for the country, and spells out exactly what network neutrality means and puts it into the statute so that it will possess the force of law. The second part embodies reasonable exceptions to the general rules, such as to route emergency communications or offer consumer protection features, such as spam blocking technology. And the final part of the bill features an expedited complaint process to deal with grievances and violations within thirty days.

The legislation states that a broadband network provider may not block, impair, degrade or discriminate against the ability of any person to use a broadband connection to access the content, applications, and services available on broadband networks, including the Internet. It ensures that broadband network providers operate their networks in a non-discriminatory manner. The bill also ensures that consumers can attach any device to the broadband operator’s network, such as an Internet phone, or wi-fi router, or settop box, or any other innovative gadget invented in the coming years. Moreover, in order to prevent the warping of the World Wide Web into a system of “tiered service,” the legislation will prevent broadband providers from charging new bottleneck fees for enhanced quality of service or the prioritization of bits.

Finally, if a broadband provider chooses to prioritize data of any type, it requires that it do so for all data of that type and not charge a fee for such prioritization. For instance, if a broadband provider wants to prioritize the transmission of bits representing a VOIP phone call for its own VOIP service, it must do so for all VOIP services so as not to put its competitors at an arbitrary disadvantage.

Mr. Speaker, from the beginning of Internet time until August of 2005, the Internet’s nondiscriminatory nature was safeguarded from being compromised by Federal Communications Commission rules that required nondiscriminatory treatment by telecommunications carriers. In other words, no commercial telecommunications carrier could engage in discriminatory conduct regarding Internet traffic and Internet access because it was prohibited by law.

In August of 2005, however, the Federal Communications Commission re-classified broadband access to the Internet in a way which removed such legal protections. And how did the industry respond to this change? Just a few weeks after the FCC removed the Internet’s protections, the Chairman of then-SBC Communications made the following statement in a November 7th Business Week interview: "Now what they [Google, Yahoo, MSN] would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there's going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they're using. . . .”

In a December 1, 2005 Washington Post article, a BellSouth executive indicated that his company wanted to strike deals to give certain Web sites priority treatment in reaching computer users. The article noted this would “significantly change how the Internet operates” and that the BellSouth executive said “his company should be allowed to charge a rival voice-over-Internet firm so that its service can operate with the same quality as BellSouth’s offering.” Meaning, that if the rival firm did not pay, or was not permitted to pay for competitive reasons, its service presumably would not “operate with the same quality” as BellSouth’s own product.

Finally, on January 6, 2006, the CEO of Verizon, in an address to the Consumer Electronics Show also indicated that Verizon would now be the corporate arbiter of how traffic would be treated when he said the following:” We have to make sure [content providers] don’t sit on our network and chew up our capacity.”

I think these statements should give pause to those who might argue that we shouldn’t do anything to enact strong network neutrality provisions because currently no harm is being done.

Do we really have to wait till these corporate giants divide and conquer the open architecture of the Internet to make that against the law? These telephone company executives are telling us that they intend to discriminate in the prioritization of bits and to discriminate in the offering of “quality of service” functions – for a new fee, a new broadband bottleneck toll – to access high bandwidth customers, we cannot afford to wait until they actually start doing that before we step in to stop it.

Once they start making money by leveraging that bottleneck position in the marketplace, will a future Congress really stare them down and take that revenue stream away?

Mr. Speaker, if we don’t protect the openness of the Internet for entrepreneurial activity, we’re ruining a wonderful model for low barrier entry, innovation, and job creation. Broadband network owners should not be able to determine who can and who cannot offer services over broadband networks or over the Internet. The detrimental effect to the digital economy would be quite severe if such conduct were permitted and became widespread. The deterioration of significant policies of nondiscrimination by the imposition of artificial bottlenecks by broadband network owners imperil economic growth, innovation, job creation, and First Amendment freedom of expression on such networks.

The Network Neutrality Act of 2006 offers Members a clear choice. It is a choice between favoring the broadband designs of a small handful of very large companies, and safeguarding the dreams of thousands of inventors, entrepreneurs, and small businesses. This legislation is designed to save the Internet and thwart those who seek to fundamentally and detrimentally alter the Internet as we know it. Mr. Speaker, I urge Members to support this bill and urge the House to take a decisive stand in favor of network neutrality."

Seeing The Sentinel tonight

Jack Bauer playing opposite the aging wonder makes me quesy, but oh well.

Ive made a discovery

Im highly allergic to poison ivy, though given my fathers plethora of allergy conditions of which i had to choose from at birth im not all that surprised.

My left knee is completely covered and the back of which is cracked and blistered. Hopefully the prednisone will kick in during the night and give some relief. In the meantime ive been looking up the steroids side affects on wikipedia. Which may include insomnia and rarely mania...Im laughing on the inside.

"Mr. President," one aide in the meeting said. "There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution."

"Stop throwing the Constitution in my face," Bush screamed back. "It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!"


Found on Tommy Bear's Flickr album

This life

Disregard the last post, writing poems about maiars and stalkers is IN.


Gandalf ~ Medini A, and Maggie M
Gandalf is really old but cool
Everyone else he can always tool
He's got a big staff and his hair is gray
And he wear the same cloak everyday
And by the way
Ian McC____ is actually gay
But that okay!
The other "Fellows" follow him around
Even when gimli makes gandalf go underground
Gandalf and Sauroman used to be really tight
But that was before their really big fight
Sauroman threw Gandalf onto Orthank
Up there, it was dark, wet, dismal and rank
So what if that an English vocab word?
So what if me(Medini) and Maggie are nerds?
Gandalf's cloak was the color of fog
He had to fight the big Barlog
They all thought he did, but he didn't really die
But when they thought he did, they all began to cry
And now we just saw the Scary SP Bio Stalker
He's almost as creepy as Garyland Focker
And by the way, we'd like to bring to light

I think people should stop using song lyrics as away messages.

Thats totally out of style.

Quoting Lord of the Rings is IN.

"As if to his eyes some sudden vision had been given, Gandalf stirred; and he turned, looking back north where the skies were pale and clear. Then he lifted up his hands and cried in a loud voice ringing above the din: The Eagles are coming! And many voices answered crying: The Eagles are coming! The Eagles are coming! The hosts of mordor looked up and wondered what this sign might mean."
-The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Chapter IV, The Field of Cormallen

RIM (blackberry maker) settles with NTP for $612 million

Blackberry devices saved from being useless to many, many customers.

read more | digg story

But im moving to the Marshall Islands till Bush is out of power.

Lately the admin has been in a seeming power struggle with the congress, his broadening war time powers are becoming apparent and will no doubt prompt a serious debate regarding powers granted to the executive during war and peace. Just recently debate was sparked when a Department of Justice official suggested that the President had the theoretical authority to order the killings of any Citizens linked to Terrorism. Scary aint it, another example is the Google court battle. If you hadnt heard the department of Justice has subpeonaed Google to hand over millions of search records made by just about everyone connected to the internet from 1998-today. The purpose the DOJ states is for info backing up a revived peice of legislation to toughen the barriers between Children and that online porn they like to watch soooo much, according to some republicans. Personally I think kids will avoid this crap on there own, thus negating the purpose of this bill. Apparently thats not very good for them politicians, maybe they have nothing better to do than try passing another bill full of bullshit riders. But i digress, It is believed that if the government gained the search records from google, they would also data mine the records for ties to al qaeda or other suspicious searches. Some even going as far as claiming the FBI will be knocking on there doors soon just for searching "Yellowcake". But thats pretty much blatant paranoia. Also of concern here is the easability of tracking back the perpetrator of the search string. Privacy advocates are hedging their bets on Google winning the court battle. Personally ill enjoy watching the Rising Sun of Silicon Valley duking it out with the U.S. government.

Now i just want to touch upon one other thing, Uh Dick Cheney...Hes a very interesting scheming individual. Weve had our share of laughs over the years, we both graduated to full Phi Beta Kappa honors back in 56, so were pretty tight. But over the weekend i see that he was quail hunting with im sure a very reputable party supporter, (Bush made him the deputy director coroner for the state of Texas), and he apparently SHOT A MAN IN THE FACE. Now im far from the mainstream media, im no political pundit but uh...politically i think it was a mistake. If your going to make an example of one of your fellow party buddies you do it through a secret think tank that dreams up random facts about the person, I.E. saying the person had a love affair with a goat and gay new jersey governor back in the party caucus of '00. You DO NOT just go hunting with the man and shoot him outright. The media tends to spin that kind of story every which way and in the end the public thinks your a douchebag.


So Dick ol' buddy, do the right thing, accuse Whittington of having a raunchy affair, he'll understand and so will we. But for gods sake wait till that poor bastard gets healthy.

Oligopoly

Are you looking forward to the new antitrust lawsuit of the century to rival Microsofts battle with the EU? Well this babies primed and ready to roll in five years tops:

The next big thing to stifle innovation and creativity

Does it seem as though the richer always invent new ways to be just that, richer?

Momma Mia

So im perusing the digg.com site and i find this gem of paranoia and a self inflicted privacy violation

href="http://www.bwired.nl/">Bwired

This guy has all his energy, water, gas, phone, devices, weather, and his house under surveillance at his website. Why you may ask? Well the homeowner believes that by tracking his energy and other expenditures he can save money in the long run by analyzing the numerous graphs on his website. Sounds like a good idea, but im not sure the cost of wiring your home with Sony EVI-D100 cameras is neccesary for this little endeavour.