In an effort to contain deliberate misinformation campaigns perpetrated by diarists, the Homeland Security Department coordinated a week-long exercise to disrupt their would-be hacker adversaries. The test scenario, observed by more than 115 government agencies, companies and organizations, included such challenges as responding to “deliberate misinformation campaigns” by bloggers.
Foresman likened his agency’s role during any Internet attack to an orchestra conductor, coordinating responses from law enforcement, intelligence agencies, the military and private firms. The government’s goal is a “symphony of preparedness,” Foresman said.
(via Seattle Post Intelligencer)
(via Boing Boing)
I delight to think that the so called controversy over evolution vs. intelligent design may itself end up being a natural selector in weeding out evolutionarily disadvantaged modes of thinking.
Any states that choose to incorporate “intelligent design” into their public school curriculums may increasingly find their students at a disadvantage in being accepted into respectable secondary learning institutions that are loyal to the rigors of the scientific method. Perhaps these rejects will resort to rampant intermarriage in their exile, resulting in a hemophiliac progeny that withers into oblivion over the generations.
Moreover, will the precarious human need for belief in God itself be eradicated through natural selection in an increasingly intellectually discerning world?
Well, let’s take it from the other side. Perhaps the mother who eschews education (and birth control) will have more time to devote to nourishing her multitude of offspring and cultivating their survivalist, multiplying wiles. Didn’t God tell them to go forth and populate the earth? Is that an evolutionary directive?
As I see it, the question is not if “intelligent design” has any scientific merit, or even if it is relatively sound thinking, but this: does intelligence itself have evolutionary stamina? It has served us well for millions of years, yet all the technological “advances” of the past two centuries continue to threaten our survival as a species - with human induced climate change, the mass extinction of other species, nuclear threat, etc.
Most people you ask will agree that intelligence is a desirable trait, but is it a conceit to impose that belief on a fictional master designer? Yes. What then if intelligence is the mutation that is our Achilles heel? A failed design? A failed designer?
Maybe that’s why some say the intelligent designer is dead. (and no one cares)
Frank Luntz, political consultant to the Republican Party, is the author of what amounts to the GOP “bible” on how to frame the debate in terms of the neocon agenda.
Luntz states, “Those who define the issue will determine the outcome.” And, fortunately, we can now learn exactly how the conservatives plan to define the issues by having a look at one of Luntz’s own publications, which begins, “Learning from 2004… Winning in 2006” (PDF, 8.8MB). First released–to our knowledge–on Daily Kos last February, if you haven’t seen this document already, it’s definitely worth a read.
(via Daily Kos)
Big Brother, as portrayed in popular fiction, is often a blatantly adversarial opponent, strong-arming the exhausted proles into their veal cages. It’s a romantic image, to be sure, but everyone knows that you catch more flies with honey, and absolute authority is not nearly as seductive as convenience. Make something more convenient, expedite it, make it more comfortable, and people will climb over each other to get it. And thus are Americans, all too vulnerable to the siren song of convenience, often the willing participants in their own subjugation.
Take the commonly-cited Safeway Club Card, which purports to offer shopping patrons lower prices, instantly! The cost? Only the time it takes to fill out the registration form, of course–and this is true as long as the participant is willing to forego some privacy in the process. At the same time, the marketers never pass a chance to foster brand loyalty. It’s a symbiotic relationship:
The result is a changing consumer universe in which customers increasingly are asked to make an Information Age trade-off: In exchange for discounts and other blandishments, they must share data with corporations about who they are and what they buy. This bargain can open individuals up to unprecedented scrutiny. (via Washington Post)
This image of convenience with no strings attached is carefully-managed by public relations firms working in tandem with such marketing corporations as the Catalina Marketing Company (“Influencing attitudes with incentives…”), one of the largest data warehousers collecting data from supermarkets across the country.
But how far does this go? Can the practices used to compromise basic consumer privacy also be used to erode civil liberties? Certainly, if it translates to additional comfort. And convenience is the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s opiate of choice for its latest ploy to foil the nasty terrorists.
New “fast-pass” traffic lanes between California and Mexico promise to speed processing of the 55,000 vehicles that enter the U.S., provided they’re willing to be tagged with background check information encoded into their SENTRI PortPass, which features Automatic Vehicle Identification (AVI) transponder technology.
That’s not too much of a sacrifice to ensure safety for all, is it? Especially if it means you can fast-pass it! Can we afford such frivolous (and increasingly obsolete) luxuries as privacy when unprovoked terror threatens us from every corner? After all, the innocent should have nothing to hide, isn’t that right? And if there’s one good thing about living in the Panopticon: at least you know you’re safe from each other.
“To be incessantly under the eyes of the inspector is to lose in effect the power to do evil and almost the thought of wanting to do it.” - Jeremy Bentham, 1791
Very comforting indeed.
On Sunday the U.S. military released a quote attributed to an “unidentified” Iraqi:
“The terrorists are attacking the infrastructure, the ISF and all of Iraq. They are enemies of humanity without religion or any sort of ethics. They have attacked my community today and I will now take the fight to the terrorists,” said one Iraqi man who preferred not to be identified.
Unfortunately, the military’s PR machine had suffered from what Lt. Col. Clifford Kent, spokesman for the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division, classified as an “administrative error.” Namely, the quote was virtually identical to a quote released my the U.S. military on July 13:
“The terrorists are attacking the infrastructure, the children and all of Iraq,” said one Iraqi man who preferred not to be identified. “They are enemies of humanity without religion or any sort of ethics. They have attacked my community today and I will now take the fight to the terrorists.”
It’s easy enough to claim that the jingoese vomited from the U.S. war machine’s jabbering maw would surprise no one. To the contrary, Americans not only buy (in both senses of the word) into the government’s homespun fiction, but actively defend conquest thinly-veiled as a pursuit of freedom. Having to choose between righteous ignorance and so-called terrorism is no choice at all.
Actually, Donald Rumsfeld said it best:
…We’re dealing with people that are perfectly willing to, to lie to the world to attempt to further their case and to the extent people lie of, ultimately they are caught lying and they lose their credibility and one would think it wouldn’t take very for that to happen dealing with people like this.
Testify! From your clicking skull jaw to the war crimes tribunal’s ears, my brother.
AMC Theatres has announced that it will not exhibit ThinkFilm’s “The Aristocrats,” an unrated documentary that features a series of comedians performing their renditions of the same classic dirty joke. Spokeswoman Pam Blase said that AMC Film Group Chairman Dick Walsh decided, with other executives, not to show the film.
It’s worth mentioning that AMC is soon to be the second-largest U.S. theatre chain after its merger with Loews Cineplex. So, while the documentary will open at Loews theatres next month, AMC’s acquisition of Loews can only foreshadow the kind of censorship endemic to media consolidation, a symptom of the same disease that now plagues the airwaves. ThinkFilm President and Chief Executive Jeff Sackman said:
“You’re going to have two theater circuits dominant in the country, and they’re going to say, ‘We don’t think you should see this movie.’”
But what’s most interesting to this moviegoer (or “consumer,” as they refer to us) is that, while a documentary without violence or nudity has been deemed too rich for AMC’s blood, the company remains more than happy to peddle a staggering amount of commercial tripe in the form of music and video “advertainment.” Your typical AMC experience includes pop contemporary hits blaring from every speaker, provided by AMC partner Movie Tunes (”Advertiser Benefit: Low clutter, no tune-out - captive audience”). And then, the crown jewel of AMC’s monetization blitz, the “Pre-Show Countdown,” brought to you by AMC’s commercial subsidiary National Cinema Network.
AMC and Regal announced, in March 2005, that they were combining their cinema advertising divisions into one company, which will produce a shared pre-show. At least we know who to boycott.
House Approves Move to Outlaw Flag Burning
“Ask the men and women who stood on top of the Trade Center,” said Rep. Randy (Duke) Cunningham, R-Calif. “Ask them and they will tell you: pass this amendment.”
…because the attacks on the Trade Center were just some big flag burning stunt? Please – you don’t need to hijack four airplanes and fly them into buildings to burn a flag. There are an infinite number of simpler methods – a barrel of stolen Iraqi oil and a match should do it.
“If the flag needs protection at all, it needs protection from members of Congress who value the symbol more than the freedoms that the flag represents.” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., whose district includes the site of the former World Trade Center.
thank you.
and for the record, our own Barbara Lee voted: NO
The Fifth Amendment states in part that governments may seize private property through “eminent domain” for public use, provided the affected parties are duly compensated. However, the Supreme Court seems to have expanded the rights of local governments to seize people’s homes and businesses for private economic development whenever they deem it profitable, regardless of whether the land is blighted.
When New London, Connecticut (pop. 25,000) officials decreed they would destroy residents’ homes in order to make room for an office complex on its so-called “revitalized waterfront,” working-class citizens filed suit. The city’s official site states, “New London, Connecticut is not just willing, it is eager to assist with the development of new businesses, help to grow and retain our existing businesses and create jobs!” No kidding. New London’s city government stated that private development plans outweighed the property rights of mere homeowners, and quick to agree were Justices John Paul Stevens, Anthony Kennedy, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.
Apparently, wealthy developers with plans to build another shopping mall now need only convince local governments that such projects will generate delicious tax revenue. Minority Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, William H. Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas disagreed however. Wrote O’Connor, “Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random. The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms.”
Country resident William Von Winkle was optimistic in spite of the Supreme Court’s ruling. “I won’t be going anywhere,” he said. “Not my house. This is definitely not the last word.”
Under the “No Child Left Behind Act,” school systems that failed to provide information to military recruiters already risked forfeiting federal funding. However, having missed recruiting targets in four straight months, the U.S. military has become even more desperate as it faces missing its 2005 recruiting goals. In its efforts to bolster a sagging all-volunteer military, the Pentagon has enlisted commercial data brokers to compile, process and distribute a database of 12 million Americans as young as age 16, specifically to help the military identify potential recruits. The plan also gives the Pentagon the right to reveal data to organizations outside the military without going to the trouble of notifying citizens.
BeNow Inc., a Wakefield, Massachusetts marketing company will be managing the database, which contains such personal data on high school students as grade-point averages to ethnicity. Only now being disclosed in a notice under the Privacy Act, the database was actually created in 2003. Pentagon officials have stated that they did not initially realize such disclosure was required.
In its statements, the Pentagon added that anyone may opt out of the system “by providing detailed personal information that will be kept in a separate suppression file.” Can armbands be far behind?
Bill Scannell has created UnrealID.com, a place for citizens to generate faxes to their senators regarding the Real ID Act. Note that the act is up for vote–tomorrow, Tuesday, May 10th.
In a CNet article, Declan McCullagh writes:
Starting three years from now, if you live or work in the United States, you’ll need a federally approved ID card to travel on an airplane, open a bank account, collect Social Security payments, or take advantage of nearly any government service.
…
Why did these ID requirements get attached to an “emergency” military spending bill? Because it’s difficult for politicians to vote against money that will go to the troops in Iraq and tsunami relief.
Free-thinking individuals may want to pay a visit, or find other ways to protest this bad idea.