A couple new circumventors:

http://www.bowsnap.com/
https://www.sunclap.com/

More here

Procured off of Ubuntu Gallery

I was wondering if he is related to McGruff?

Photo Essay: Sea Change - MotherJones

As climate change melts the permafrost, Arctic villages slip into the sea, taking a way of life with them.

View on ...

~

The Top Pundits In America - Forbes

What exactly is a pundit? According to the dictionary, it's "a person who makes comments or judgments, especially in an authoritative manner; critic or commentator."

There's certainly no shortage of that in the media these days.

Call the past decade the era of the talking head. Cable news networks trying to one-up each other in the ratings roll out programs hosted by people with pointed positions, most of them going one-on-one with guests who also bring strong views and--sometimes--expertise to the table.

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Frank Caliendo on Letterman during Impressionists Week - youtube

David Lettermans "Top Ten Favorite George Bush Moments" - youtube

Myanmar's Resources Provide Leverage - New York Times

For two decades, Myanmar's neighbors have grappled with the question of how to respond to the unrelenting repression by the country's ruling generals of its people. In Thailand, the answer comes each time Thais pay their electricity bill.

Natural gas from Myanmar, which generates 20 percent of all electricity in Thailand, keeps the lights on in Bangkok. The gas, which this year will cost about $2.8 billion, is the largest single export for Myanmar's otherwise impoverished and cash-strapped economy.

Thailand's gas imports highlight the dilemma facing China, India, Singapore and Malaysia, among other countries, as they vie for Myanmar's hardwoods, minerals, gems - and access to its market of 47 million people.

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Putin Says He Will Run for Parliament - New York Times

President Vladimir V. Putin announced today that he would be the leading candidate on the list of Russia's dominant political party in parliamentary elections in December, and said he might become the country's prime minister next year.

The announcement, made by Mr. Putin at the eighth congress of the intensely pro-Putin United Russia party, appeared to offer fresh insights into the tantalizing issue currently surrounding the Kremlin and Russian political affairs: the precise intentions of Russia's president, who is barred by the Constitution from seeking a third consecutive term when his current term expires in 2008.

Mr. Putin's statements strongly suggest what most analysts had already assumed — that he plans to maintain a hold on much of the power he has accrued during his eight years in the Kremlin, a period during which Russia's economy and international influence have expanded and many Russians have seen their living conditions improve.

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Burma: Thousands dead in massacre of the monks dumped in the jungle - Daily Mail

Thousands of protesters are dead and the bodies of hundreds of executed monks have been dumped in the jungle, a former intelligence officer for Burma's ruling junta has revealed.

The most senior official to defect so far, Hla Win, said: "Many more people have been killed in recent days than you've heard about. The bodies can be counted in several thousand."

Mr Win, who spoke out as a Swedish diplomat predicted that the revolt has failed, said he fled when he was ordered to take part in a massacre of holy men. He has now reached the border with Thailand.

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Stallone and crew saw Myanmar aftermath - Yahoo News

Sylvester Stallone says he and his "Rambo" sequel movie crew recently witnessed the human toll of unspeakable atrocities while filming along the Myanmar border.

"I witnessed the aftermath - survivors with legs cut off and all kinds of land-mine injuries, maggot-infested wounds and ears cut off," Stallone told The Associated Press in a phone interview Monday. "We hear about Vietnam and Cambodia and this was more horrific."

The 61-year-old actor-director returned to the U.S. eight days ago from shooting "John Rambo," the fourth movie in the action series, on the Salween River separating Thailand and Myanmar, formerly known as Burma.

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Practical Values: Hard to Break - MotherJones

As the scary studies about plastic's health effects pile up, should we kick the habit?

My moment of plastic panic came a few months ago. As a science writer, I've spent the past several years following the steady stream of research into the disturbing effects of the chemicals that leach into our bodies from everyday plastic objects. I'd managed to stay pretty calm about these unsettling discoveries, but then I went to yet another presentation where renowned scientists described new, peer-reviewed findings on how plastic's ingredients may cause reproductive abnormalities and obesity. Afterward, I huddled with the other journalists present, brimming with uneasy questions: Does this mean we should ditch our refillable plastic water bottles? Is it safe for our kids to chew on plastic toys? Should we try to go completely plastic free?

It's one thing to use cloth shopping bags in the name of ecofriendliness or to forswear plastic cutlery in the pursuit of style; it's another to eschew plastics because they might be a health risk. But are you about to give up your computer or cell phone? What about your bike helmet or your child's car seat? Your contact lenses? Your toothbrush? Probably not.

Then what to do about the alarming fact that plastic's chemical constituents are percolating throughout our bodies, apparently interfering with our metabolism, our sex organs, and our children's neurological and reproductive development? The Centers for Disease Control has found two compounds—phthalates, used in polyvinyl chloride (pvc) plastic, and bisphenol A, a building block of polycarbonate plastics—in the urine of a majority of Americans tested. Both chemicals are short-lived once they enter the environment, but they're being scrutinized for their potential to mimic and disrupt our hormones—even before we're born.

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Acording to Morning Paper, AT&T has issued an updated terms of service that enables them to discontinue your service if you speak bad about them or any company it's related to.Nice!

5.1 Suspension/Termination. [...]AT&T may immediately terminate or suspend all or a portion of your Service, any Member ID, electronic mail address, IP address, Universal Resource Locator or domain name used by you, without notice, for conduct that AT&T believes (a) violates the Acceptable Use Policy; (b) constitutes a violation of any law, regulation or tariff (including, without limitation, copyright and intellectual property laws) or a violation of these TOS, or any applicable policies or guidelines, or (c) tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries.

In responce AT&T said:

AT&T respects its subscribers' rights to voice their opinions and concerns over any matter they wish. However, we retain the right to disassociate ourselves from websites and messages explicitly advocating violence, or any message that poses a threat to children (e.g. child pornography or exploitation). We do not terminate customer service solely because a customer speaks negatively about AT&T.

This policy is not new and it's not unique to AT&T.

As a result of our recent mergers, we have simply incorporated language from the AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet Terms of Service into the Terms of Service for our legacy Worldnet and BellSouth customers. The language is consistent with that of previous documents for those companies, and is equally consistent with former AT&T and its legacy companies' policies.

I'll just sit back, watch and wait.

RIAA Piracy Trial: Day One - PCWorld

Nearly 26,000 users have been sued by the Recording Industry Association of America for allegedly pilfering music tracks off of the Internet. The first case made its way to a Duluth, Minnesota federal court Tuesday where the RIAA is accusing 30-year-old Jammie Thomas of sharing 1702 songs through the Kazaa peer-to-peer network.

Thomas is fighting the charge and will reportedly claim she swapped her computer hard drive approximately the same time online investigators documented her computer was sharing copyrighted music files.

RIAA lawyers contend in its lawsuit against Thomas: "This individual was distributing these audio files for free over the Internet under the username 'tereastarr@KaZaA' to potentially millions of other KaZaA users."

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Fifty years ago today Russia shocked the world with a little thing called Sputnik1

Sputnik at 50: An improvised triumph - Yahoo News

When Sputnik took off 50 years ago, the world gazed at the heavens in awe and apprehension, watching what seemed like the unveiling of a sustained Soviet effort to conquer space and score a stunning Cold War triumph.

But 50 years later, it emerges that the momentous launch was far from being part of a well-planned strategy to demonstrate communist superiority over the West. Instead, the first artificial satellite in space was a spur-of-the-moment gamble driven by the dream of one scientist, whose team scrounged a rocket, slapped together a satellite and persuaded a dubious Kremlin to open the space age.

And that winking light that crowds around the globe gathered to watch in the night sky? Not Sputnik at all, as it turns out, but just the second stage of its booster rocket, according to Boris Chertok, one of the founders of the Soviet space program.

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Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations - NY Times

When the Justice Department publicly declared torture "abhorrent" in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations.

But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales's arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.

The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and

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Gathering 'Storm' Superworm Poses Grave Threat to PC Nets - Wired

The Storm worm first appeared at the beginning of the year, hiding in e-mail attachments with the subject line: "230 dead as storm batters Europe." Those who opened the attachment became infected, their computers joining an ever-growing botnet.

Although it's most commonly called a worm, Storm is really more: a worm, a Trojan horse and a bot all rolled into one. It's also the most successful example we have of a new breed of worm, and I've seen estimates that between 1 million and 50 million computers have been infected worldwide.

Old style worms -- Sasser, Slammer, Nimda -- were written by hackers looking for fame. They spread as quickly as possible (Slammer infected 75,000 computers in 10 minutes) and garnered a lot of notice in the process. The onslaught made it easier for security experts to detect the attack, but required a quick response by antivirus companies, sysadmins and users hoping to contain it. Think of this type of worm as an infectious disease that shows immediate symptoms.

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I am creating artificial life, declares US gene pioneer - Guardian

Craig Venter, the controversial DNA researcher involved in the race to decipher the human genetic code, has built a synthetic chromosome out of laboratory chemicals and is poised to announce the creation of the first new artificial life form on Earth.

The announcement, which is expected within weeks and could come as early as Monday at the annual meeting of his scientific institute in San Diego, California, will herald a giant leap forward in the development of designer genomes. It is certain to provoke heated debate about the ethics of creating new species and could unlock the door to new energy sources and techniques to combat global warming.

Mr Venter told the Guardian he thought this landmark would be "a very important philosophical step in the history of our species. We are going from reading our genetic code to the ability to write it. That gives us the hypothetical ability to do things never contemplated before".

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A name is imposed on what is thought to be a thing or a state and this divides it from other things and other states. But when you pursue what lies behind the name, you find a greater and greater subtlety that has no divisions. Atoms of dust are not really atoms of dust but are merely called that. In the same way, a world is not a world but is merely called that.

Visuddhi Magga

Praise and blame, gain and loss, pleasure and sorrow, come and go like the wind. To be happy, rest like a giant tree in the midst of them all.

Buddha

FCC won't probe disclosure of phone records - Reuters

The head of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission declined to investigate reports that phone companies turned over customer records to the National Security Agency, citing national security concerns, according to documents released on Friday.

Green fuels will save the earth - or not - Reuters

The earth is too small to accommodate all the biofuels projects envisioned for the globe, and this raises doubts whether green fuels will ever play a big role in weaning the world off crude oil.

Thou Shalt Not Kill, Except in a Popular Video Game at Church - NY Times

First the percussive sounds of sniper fire and the thrill of the kill. Then the gospel of peace.

Monks flee crackdown in Burma - CSM

Three Buddhist monks tell their stories. UN envoy reports Friday on his meeting with military leaders.

Peruse best-of-craigslist

Because of libration you actually get to see 59% of the Moon's surface from Earth.

The animation shows a set of simulated views of the Moon over one month.

Edgar Allen Poe dies on this date in 1849, four days after being found in a Baltimore gutter.

(He) was an American poet, short story writer, editor, literary critic, and one of the leaders of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and of the macabre, Poe was one of the early American practitioners of the short story and a progenitor of detective fiction and crime fiction. He is also credited with contributing to the emergent science fiction genre.

- Wikipedia

The Raven

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore --
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door --
"'Tis some visiter," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door --
           Only this and nothing more."

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; -- vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow -- sorrow for the lost Lenore --
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore --
           Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me -- filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,
"'Tis some visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door --
Some late visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door; --
           This it is and nothing more."

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
"Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you " -- here I opened wide the door; ----
           Darkness there and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore?"
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!" --
           Merely this and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
"Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore --
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;--
           'Tis the wind and nothing more!"

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore;
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door --
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door --
           Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore --
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!"
           Quoth the Raven "Nevermore."

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning -- little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door --
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
           With such name as "Nevermore."

But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing further then he uttered -- not a feather then he fluttered --
Till I scarcely more than muttered "Other friends have flown before --
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before."
           Then the bird said "Nevermore."

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
"Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore --
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
           Of 'Never -- nevermore'."

But the Raven still beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore --
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore
           Meant in croaking "Nevermore."

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o'er,
            She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
"Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee -- by these angels he hath sent thee
Respite -- respite and nepenthe, from thy memories of Lenore;
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!"
           Quoth the Raven "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil! -- prophet still, if bird or devil! --
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted --
On this home by Horror haunted -- tell me truly, I implore --
Is there -- is there balm in Gilead? -- tell me -- tell me, I implore!"
           Quoth the Raven "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil -- prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us -- by that God we both adore --
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore --
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore."
           Quoth the Raven "Nevermore."

"Be that word our sign in parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting --
"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! -- quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"
           Quoth the Raven "Nevermore."

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
           Shall be lifted -- nevermore!

Fresh bread, fresh start for ex-gang members - CSM

Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles opened its fourth location last week, providing jobs, training, and hope to former street toughs.

As the smell of baking dough wafts into an upstairs snack room, two former rival gang members cross paths and sightlines with a pregnant pause.

"Whussup homies?" says Gustavo Mojica, standing on a prosthetic leg that replaces the real one he lost in a shoot-out in 2000 defending "East L.A. 13," a well-known local gang.

"Gus!... hope you stayin' focused...," says Luis "Lulu" Rivera, formerly of TMC (The Mob Crew) known for drug dealing.

The former enemies today are more likely to share a high-five than reach for a weapon. They are co-workers at Homeboy Industries, a nonprofit rehabilitation center for former gang members founded 20 years ago by Father Gregory Boyle, a parish priest in the Boyle Heights neighborhood near downtown.

Read on ...

Colleges shouldn't have to police illegal downloading - Rocky Mountain News Editorial

Congress is in the process of renewing the Higher Education Act of 1965, the federal law that established a major role for Washington in providing aid to low- and middle-income college students.

As with most legislation that has large sums of taxpayer funding attached, lawmakers are finding the temptation to lard it up with regulations impossible to resist.

Beltway-based micromanagement of colleges and universities is rarely wise, but it's really offensive when the hammer of federal law is wielded at the behest of a narrow interest group.

In this case, the powerful interest is the entertainment industry, which wants to sic U.S. Department of Education officials on schools where students use campus Internet networks to illegally download music and video files.

It's odd that Congress would entangle the Education Department in an otherwise unrelated law-enforcement issue; that's usually the bailiwick of the Justice Department.

Read on ...

Ballmer comments reflect deeper problems - ZDnet

Ballmer Claims Red Hat Violates Microsoft IP - PCWorld

All open source dev should happen on Windows - Register

Ballmer threatens Linux and open source with patents again - Linux-Watch

In Myanmar, an Aftermath in Full - NY Times Lede Blog

Things seem to be getting back to normal in Myanmar, the kind of normal that prompted the huge protests in the first place.

Fake caller ID: Fun, legal and easy to do - CNet

Caller ID information is not to be trusted. Judging by the reactions I've gotten from colleagues and friends recently after they've been the victims of spoofe.d-ID demonstrations, it's not common knowledge that caller ID information, primarily the phone number that often appears on the recipient's telephone display, can be easily faked. Best of all for the mysterious caller, it's not illegal in the U.S. (except in cases where fraud occurs). Calls for the purpose of amusement or revenge are perfectly legal.

It's Not Democracy. It's a Sub. - Washington Post Opinion

Americans Seem Willing to Vote for Everything but an Actual Candidate

Making a Killing: A Blackwater Timeline - MotherJones

An investigation by the Iraqi government has determined that Blackwater's September 16 shootings in Baghdad were both indiscriminate and unprovoked. This is far from the first time Blackwater operators have been accused of gross (and deadly) misconduct.

Abuse of Presidential Power and the Ghost of Nixon - MotherJones

The Supreme Court today refused to hear the appeal of German citizen Khaled El-Masri, who was contesting a March decision by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to dismiss his lawsuit against the CIA. El-Masri alleged that in 2004 he was kidnapped by the CIA and rendered to a secret prison in Afghanistan, where he was tortured.

Outfoxing the Fox - Outside Magazine

To catch a caveman like Osama bin Laden, who's at home in some of the earth's most remote mountains, what you really need is a great outdoorsman.

Gone: Mass Extinction and the Hazards of Earth's Vanishing Biodiversity - Julia Whitty MotherJones

It is a fact widely accepted by biologists but little known by the population at large. By the end of the century, half of all species on Earth may be extinct due to global warming and other causes. Who will survive the world's dwindling biodiversity, and why?

We awake in our tents in the moonlight to what sounds like a dance troupe in wooden clogs practicing on rock under stunted juniper trees. It's a half-dozen Carmen mountain white-tailed deer, scraping at the ground with bootlike hooves, bending gracile necks to chew on wet soil and lick it dry. They're harvesting the minerals and moisture from our urine soaked into the parched earth of the high desert, the herd toiling through the night and into the morning in a pursuit tenacious enough to enlighten us to the wastefulness of our own bodies. Clearly, the three of us have squandered most of what we drank hiking to 7,400 feet on the south rim of Texas' Chisos Mountains. From the deer's point of view, our arrival here is the next best thing to rain.

Come morning, we pack camp and loiter on the precipice, staring across wracked ranges and sunburnt country to the Rio Grande thousands of feet below, and to the even higher country of Mexico's Sierra Madre. Here, in Big Bend National Park, one of America's truly wild places, there's barely a sign of human impact, and not a sound of it—not planes, cars, or human voices. The silence is so thick that our ears feel congested, and we jump when the quiet is pierced by the whistle of a peregrine falcon on its glide path through thin air.

We spend a couple of hours here with binoculars, map, and compass, scanning 100-mile visibility, scrutinizing the area below the rim and trying to find a trail we might travel another day. Although we don't know it, we're peering down into the place where a lost hiker is desperately trying to find the same trail and a freshwater spring midway along it. At this point he has been without water for three days. We don't see him stumbling through cholla and nopales cactus and writing farewell notes to loved ones—though he is likely staring up at the mirage of us silhouetted against the sky.

Ironically, this corner of the Chihuahuan Desert is lush at the moment, watered by rains two months ago that are still working their way through soils and roots and cells, so that many plants are blooming and an explosion of butterflies jams the breezes. The cacti are swollen with hoarded water. The Chisos oaks are dropping so many acorns that park rangers have closed trails where black bears are fattening on them. Countless millions of walking-stick insects are coupled in such dense mating congregations in the canopies of mesquites that entire trees appear to be walking through the sky. Everything is haloed in the golds, yellows, and greens of desert grasses, some taller than us, all bowed under heavy seed heads destined to feed and water kangaroo rats.

Read on ...

Shuttleworth on Ballmer - Linux-Watch

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has once more claimed that Linux and open source violates Microsoft's intellectual property and patents. Canonical's CEO Mark Shuttleworth thinks Ballmer has it all wrong.

EPA's record settlement with utility could lead to other deals - CSM

A utility's dramatic agreement this week to trim smokestack pollution may do more than help clear the nation's skies. It may clear the legal logjam that has kept other large utilities from cutting similar deals that could trigger reductions in harmful power-plant emissions.

By one estimate, US power plants could cut their emissions of pollutants linked to acid rain and smog by 20 percent.

The agreement, announced Tuesday by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), sends a powerful, though not necessarily decisive, signal to other utilities, legal analysts say.

In settling an EPA lawsuit, the nation's largest utility, American Electric Power, agreed to spend $4.6 billion to reduce its emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2) by 79 percent and nitrogen oxides (NOx) by 69 percent.The EPA called the settlement its largest pollution-enforcement victory ever.

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Peacefire.org has set up a new Circumventor site:

http://www.jokebottle.com/

Be sure to try https://www.stupidsensorship.com first.

The big list of Circumventor sites is here.

10 Rocking Features in 10 Days - Countdown to Ubuntu 7.10

Mother's ire puts Ballmer on defense over Vista - ComputerWorld

The For a few minutes during Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer's appearance at the Gartner Inc. Symposium ITxpo conference here, emotionless management-speak gave way to a mother's frustration with the Vista operating system.

Judges, courts under fire, O'Connor says - Rocky Mountain News

Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said Wednesday night that judges and the courts have come under fire more and more in recent years for fulfilling their role as a check on the other branches of government.

Flow with whatever may happen
and let your mind be free;
Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing.
This is the ultimate.

Chuang Tsu

The Secret Diary of Steve Ballmer

NSA's Lucky Break: How the U.S. Became Switchboard to the World - Wired

A lucky coincidence of economics is responsible for routing much of the world's internet and telephone traffic through switching points in the United States, where, under legislation introduced this week, the U.S. National Security Agency will be free to continue tapping it.

Welcome To Purple Tuesday

Rockies Win The Pennant !

Verizon Says It Turned Over Data Without Court Orders - Washington Post

Verizon Communications, the nation's second-largest telecom company, told congressional investigators that it has provided customers' telephone records to federal authorities in emergency cases without court orders hundreds of times since 2005.

The Kingdom of the Lotus - Patrick Symmes
A not-always-mythic journey to Shambhala, over sky-high mountains and across vicious deserts, requiring boldness of heart, purity of vision, the recitation of 99 million mantras, and $45 worth of Snickers bars, party balloons, Diamox, and dehydrated soup.

I'm not telling you where it is. But in order to reach Shambhala, you need a mixture of merit and dumb luck, and at first the dumb part seemed to be working. When I wrestled my luggage, packed with clothes for three climates and obscure tracts from four religions, onto the night train out of New Delhi, there was something auspicious in my bunk assignment.

It was a sleeping carriage, the start of a run east. Tomorrow I would cross the border to Nepal on foot. Then on to Kathmandu. Then Lhasa. Then over Tibet and onward, sometimes west and always north, to places unknown. Tonight the train was jostling, hot, full of brilliant Indian colors and smells, the famous synesthesia of the subcontinent, too much of everything. The cabin had four bunks. The pair on the right were occupied by a Brahmin couple, having their feet kissed in farewell by their adult children. And on the bunk below mine, what had to be perfect luck: a Buddhist monk, his elegant robes dark mustard, his disposition affable.

One is enjoined to seek, on the road to the hidden kingdom, the blessing and advice of wise monks, and around midnight, after rubbing menthol all over himself, this learned man listened to my plan. I was setting out on the ancient pilgrimage route to Shambhala, I told him, to seek the king and paradise here on earth. I was afraid, I said. Did he have any advice? No. Any teaching? No. Any blessing? No. Shambhala was "lama nonsense," he said. A Thai, he didn't believe in the stories, carefully curated over the centuries by Tibetan Buddhists, that Shambhala was a real place, a city that could be found. Shambhala, the monk told me, was a destination for an inner journey. I should meditate more, he suggested, and travel less.

"Don't go," he said, and went to sleep.

Read on ...

I have had some fun with Ubuntu 7.10 these past few days. I initially did the upgrade rather than a fresh install. The upgrade went well but over the first few days little problems started cropping up. The final straw was my sound going south. Ya just got to have sound man. So today I backed up everything and did a clean install plus a little reorganizing my partitions. Everything seems to be working better now.

A few things are still kind of weird though.

• gDesklets with no longer load on startup
• I am unable to use the "Normal" visual-effects because certain programs aren't working properly with them. (Thingamablog being one of them.)
• When logging in I can't get the start up screen to stay black. Once I log in it goes to the Ubuntu tan color until the wallpaper sets itself.

Of course some things are working now that didn't work before such as my usb powered external hard drive With 7.04 it would not unmount properly, now it does. Who knows?!

I like the new Tracker Search Tool. It doesn't take up as much resources as Google Desktop Search did. Google was a dog when it came to viewing email. It would just bring my laptop to a crawl.

Overall I am pretty happy with the OS and am looking forward to 8.04 as the LTS version will have support for 3 years as apposed to 18 months.

NSA cooperation: OK for e-mail, IM companies? - C|Net

A new Senate bill would protect not only telephone companies from lawsuits claiming illegal cooperation with the National Security Agency. It would retroactively immunize e-mail providers, search engines, Internet service providers and instant-messaging services too.

NASA won't disclose air safety survey - Yahoo! News/AP

Anxious to avoid upsetting air travelers, NASA is withholding results from an unprecedented national survey of pilots that found safety problems like near collisions and runway interference occur far more frequently than the government previously recognized.

Microsoft finally bows to EU antitrust measure - Reuters

Microsoft Corp ended three years of resistance on Monday, finally agreeing to comply with a landmark 2004 antitrust decision by the European Commission.

AT&T embraces citywide Wi-Fi, sort of - C|Net

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. - That seems to be the philosophy AT&T has taken when it comes to citywide Wi-Fi. Only a few years ago, AT&T was lobbying in city councils and statehouses around the country trying to prevent cities from building their own broadband networks. AT&T and other service providers argued that these new networks would compete unfairly with their own broadband services.

Segway's Ferrari edition (that's right) - Crave

Despite a recent push by human chickens, the Segway still hasn't become the ubiquitous mode of personal transportation that some once envisioned. And somehow it seems that acquiring Ferrari's nameplate won't bring it that much closer to reality.

Tom Toles - 21 October, 2007 

Check out more images on Best of Worth A

Tenryu-ji temple and its 14th century zen garden (Kyoto)

Image available on Flickr

Here is a great slideshow of antonioperezrio.es' Traditional Japan

I have started a Flickr site for photos of mine. I have never found a photo album maker for GNU/Linux that I have really liked. I use to use Arles Image but, alas, it is not ported to GNU/Linux. Bummer!

~

Have managed to upload most of my months allotment of photos. Now I'll just have to upgrade to the "pro" so I can have more than 3 sets. The current sets are Sunsets, Graphitti and Denver Winter 06/07.

What's at Stake in the Surveillance Debate in Congress - Wired Commentary

Over the next few weeks and months, civil libertarians and consumer advocates will wage a battle against the telecommunications companies and the Bush administration to preserve some semblance of privacy rights in Americans' communications.

Congress will be considering several versions of bills that will, one way or another, expand government access to phone calls and e-mails. These legislative proposals are complex and in flux, but there are two main issues at the center of the debate that citizens can focus on. One is whether eavesdropping on millions of Americans simultaneously is acceptable. The second is whether communications companies should get a free pass for breaking the law by allowing illegal warrantless surveillance of all Americans' communications.

In the 1960s and '70s, several Supreme Court cases held that citizens can reasonably expect that the government will not eavesdrop on their personal communications without first demonstrating to a court the need for this privacy invasion. Congress passed the Wiretap Act of 1968 to regulate eavesdropping for law enforcement purposes, and added the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978 to establish procedures for the president to follow when conducting surveillance for national-security purposes. FISA established a "secret court" -- the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, or FISC -- to review applications for national-security warrants. These could be obtained merely by showing that the target was an agent of a foreign power.

Read on ...

 
Jeff Danziger - 23 October 2007

 
Tony Auth - 24 October 2007

Peacefire.org has set up a new Circumventor site:

http://www.turtlejar.com/

Remember, always try https://www.stupidcensorship.com first and if it works stay with it.

Here is the big list.

 
Dana Summers - 23 October 2007

 
Tom Toles - 24 October 2007

Drew Litton - Rocky Mountain News

Drew Litton - Rocky Mountain News

Drew Litton - Rocky Mountain News 

I Was Wrong: Microsoft Won - open dot dot dot

I could feel it in my bones: the great victory of the EU over MS is a sham. Here's why.

Ex-steely Neelie - to be renamed wheeler-dealer Neelie - said as follows:

I told Microsoft that it should give legal security to programmers who help to develop open source software and confine its patent disputes to commercial software distributors and end users. Microsoft will now pledge to do so.

And naively, I thought that meant what it said. Silly me. Reference to the rather low-profile EU FAQ clarifies:

Can open source software developers implement patented interoperability information?

Open source software developers use various “open source” licences to distribute their software. Some of these licences are incompatible with the patent licence offered by Microsoft. It is up to the commercial open source distributors to ensure that their software products do not infringe upon Microsoft’s patents. If they consider that one or more of Microsoft’s patents would apply to their software product, they can either design around these patents, challenge their validity or take a patent licence from Microsoft.

Read on ...

Vista versus The Gutsy Gibbon - Ubuntu 7.10 - Rupert Goodwins - ZDNet UK

I'm currently using seven computers. Well, not at this precise moment (just three, as it happens), but darn it if I'm not proud of the fact.

Of those seven, three run XP, one runs Ubuntu 6.06, two are now on Ubuntu 7.10, and one is Vista. Apple has invited me along to the Festival of the Leopard, so I have high hopes that I'll soon be adding OS X to the mix (I do have a Mac OS 8 box in the bedroom, but I only use that for Crystal Quest, so it doesn't count).

My XP systems, I like. Everything works with them, the one in the office lets me use the office Windows-only software (gnash) that controls the phones, and the two at home get loaded up with other bits of hardware and software that i can't be bothered to (or just can't) shoehorn into Linux.

My Ubuntu boxes, I love. The 6.06 computer is an ancient Compaq Armada with a 500 MHz PIII, a smear of memory, a shagged battery, and an unusually large hard disk that got transplanted in from a dead Windows laptop. It does various server tasks perfectly well, I VNC into it from around the planet to keep it on its toes, and I last reset it after around 190 days uptime. It's the heart of the Goodwinsian computer matrix.

Read on ...

Steve Kelley - 24 October 2007

How Government Snoops Get a Direct Line to Consumer Data - MotherJones

Last week's revelation that Verizon readily opened its phone logs to the feds should come as no surprise. The firm is a standout example of the revolving door between government and the telecom industry.

The CIA's Double Secret Probation - MotherJones

Valerie Plame was just the latest woman to run up against Langley's Kafkaesque workplace culture.

Denver could get King Tut show - Rocky Mountain News

Denver is a potential destination for a tour of objects related to King Tut, the fabled Egyptian "boy king." - "We are speaking to a short list of potential cities for the continuation of the King Tut exhibition, and Denver is on this list," Michael Roth, a spokesman for Arts and Exhibitions International, a division of AEG Live that is organizing the tour, said today.

Tom Toles - 26 October 2007 

 
Drew Litton - 26 October 2007

Geeks, Robots, the Pentagon and Big Money - LinuxInsider

This year, computer-controlled cars must pass a driving test in a setting made to look like a city. Using only its computer brain and sensors, each vehicle must carry out mock supply missions by navigating a 60-mile obstacle course. The vehicles will be graded on how well they flow with traffic, heed stop signs, maneuver traffic circles and avoid accidents.

China Surpasses U.S. for Deepest Carbon Footprint - Outside

China has surpassed the United States in carbon emissions to become the world’s largest producer of carbon dioxide, the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (NEAA) reported Tuesday.

Skateboarding Dogs and Dramatic Chipmunks: I Love the '00s - MotherJones

When it comes time to commemorate the pop culture of the '00s, I sincerely hope it doesn't happen via a VH1 "I Love the '90s" clone. I hope it is online, viral, and ADDed to the extreme—in short, I hope it befits this glorious decade.

Coal Use Grows Despite Warming Worries - U.S.News & World Report

Almost nonstop, gargantuan 145-ton trucks rumble through China's biggest open-pit coal mine, sending up clouds of soot as they dump their loads into mechanized sorters.

Power Revolution - U.S News & World Report

Thanks to Silicon Valley's money and ideas, solar and other alternative technologies may finally pay off

Trouble found on space station device - Rocky Mountain News/AP

Spacewalking astronauts doing construction work outside the international space station Sunday made a disturbing discovery: what appear to be metal shavings inside a joint that is needed to turn a set of solar power panels.

Peacefire.org newest Circumventor site:

http://www.frogtunnel.com/
http://www.nosefaith.com/

Remember, always try https://www.stupidcensorship.com first and if it works stay with it.

Here is the big list.

Somehow I missed these when they came out:

https://www.rainlock.com/
http://www.ratdrop.com/

Supreme Court to Hear Exxon Valdez Case - Washington Post

The Supreme Court today agreed to hear an appeal by Exxon Mobil Corp. that seeks to overturn $2.5 billion in punitive damages a federal court ordered the company to pay for the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off Alaska.

Kremlin Seeks To Extend Its Reach in Cyberspace - Washington Post

After ignoring the Internet for years to focus on controlling traditional media such as television and newspapers, the Kremlin and its allies are turning their attention to cyberspace, which remains a haven for critical reporting and vibrant discussion in Russia's dwindling public sphere

Warming said to have potential to wipe out most species - Reuters

Rising temperatures could wipe out more than half of the earth's species in the next few centuries, according to researchers who published a study on Wednesday linking climate change to past mass extinctions.

The Colbert Nation Quickly Colonizes Facebook - NY Times

Stephen Colbert's presidential candidacy may be phony, but his supporters are very real.

Bush's Dangerous Liaisons - NY Times

Much as George W. Bush's presidency was ineluctably shaped by Sept. 11, 2001, so the outbreak of the French Revolution was symbolized by the events of one fateful day, July 14, 1789. And though 18th-century France may seem impossibly distant to contemporary Americans, future historians examining Mr. Bush's presidency within the longer sweep of political and intellectual history may find the French Revolution useful in understanding his curious brand of 21st- century conservatism.

The Last Ride - High Country News

I don't even remember my first ride. When I was a young teenager, growing up in southern Oregon, my dad and I used to hitchhike back to our car after we’d boated down the Klamath, or the Rogue, or the Umpqua. Hitchhiking wasn’t a very large part of my life until I graduated from college, and became an idealist.

I decided to try to go places, go long distances. I liked the environmental aspect of hitchhiking, that it used less gas, and I liked that it was cheap. It also felt like a grand adventure, like a cool thing to do.

So I took a lot of trips. I went from Arizona to Montana to Colorado and back to Arizona, and I went from Colorado to Oregon and back to Colorado. I hitchhiked around Germany, France, Luxembourg and Holland.

I've probably gotten four or five hundred rides in the last 20 years. I th