I'm in San Francisco for the Google I/O conference/geekgasm. It's too awesome for words. I'd almost forgotten how much I love this city and the West Coast in general. Gorgeous. Careful Maine, you just might loose me!

The Wednesday morning keynote was an introduction by Google Engineering VP Vic Gundotra to the cloud availability, pervasive connectivity, and ease of deployment strategies Google is trying to realize with products like Google App Engine and Android.

I followed this up with a couple of sessions, one by Python creator Guido van Rossum and another by Google Fellow Jeff Dean. At the end of a fascinating trip under Google's hood, Dean announced that the after party should not be missed. Oh yeah, he also let slip that Flight of the Conchords would be playing. The room collectively w00t!!11!-ed its pants.


Jeff was right. The party was something to behold. The main room where the keynote speech was held that morning had been transformed into a Google playland. Foosball, pool, Wiis everywhere. And the food. Two words: Chocolate fountain. I'll say this, Google can throw a party. I've never seen so many developers in one place not bitching about work; and that's saying something.

Throughout the conference we've returned again and again to several core philosophies Google holds near and dear, but there were some blind-spots I wasn't expecting. Google is trying hard to be a good friend to developers and to humanity in general, but it's just too huge and too powerful; there's still an undercurrent of trepidation amongst many of the older and wiser attendees. And there's definitely more going on behind the scenes.

With any environment where there is a finely delineated inside and outside, there's going to be suspicion. And suspicion kills.

Unfortunately there's nothing for it. Google can't be what it is without holding some cards close to its chest, and we can't survive as users and developers without remaining vigilantly critical of its motives and methods.

More to follow once I've had a chance to digest and ponder.

Labels: bloggers, blogging, Google, Google Code, Internet, IO2008, technology

Some folks blog everyday. Back when this little thing of mine started, I was churning out several posts a day, so I get it. But life gets in the way of even the most powerful addictions. Even the sweet, sweet nectar of news and information can't last long under the pressing weight of real world responsibilities.

So work has gotten the better of part of my time lately. The bills are paid, but the blog has suffered. Sort of. While I haven't been consuming, digesting, and regurgitating nearly as much information as I'm used to, I have been busy with a hammer so to speak. I've reconfigured the navigation slightly with some shiny jQuery, and I've jumped head first into Google Code.

I'm pretty happy with the results so far, which is of course a very rough work in progress...as always. Now, after a few Sundays worth of reading and tagging my old posts and manipulating Google's Ajax Feed API to work nicely with Blogger labels, I've managed to cobble together a real live tag cloud; color-coded and sorted even.

Sure it's a nifty bit of code, but what I'm really happy about is the hard earned functionality of it all. Having to go back to re-read and tag all my posts from the past few years was an experience in itself, but to have all of those posts parsed and sorted in the cloud is like holding a funhouse mirror up to rapid dissent for the first time. I haven't quite wrapped my brain around what that collection of topics and labels say about this blog, but my first impression is to feel disappointment at the limited scope of this space so far.

It's a little late in the year for resolutions, and I was never good at keeping those anyway, so I'll just call it a day and do my best to start letting this blog be a little bit more reflective of what I believe it is. Until then, rock out with the Flobots, and fight with tools!

Labels: bloggers, blogging, Flobots, Google, Google Code, Music, Video

Life is hard. We all have our daily struggles to deal with, and we do. We get up, we put on our ass-kicking boots, and we live. But every once in a while the universe squares up and really kicks you in the nuts. And when it does, it's not some glancing, clip-the-sack blow either. I'm talking about one of those full-frontal, stars in the eyes, vomit inducing kicks in the nuts. The kind of kick that makes you wish you were dead just so the pain would stop. The kind of kick that, if you survive, will make you appreciate every pain-free breath for the rest of your life.

That's the tricky part right there: surviving. We've all got our ways and means, but every one of us needs time, and my time is up. I still hurt, but my ass-kicking boots are calling.

In the mania of my recovery I've cleaned, organized, and simplified anything and everything I could get my hands on. This blog was the last little bit of clutter left in my life that needed a good bleaching, so I've taken a wire brush to the code and this is the result. Nothing special, it just is.

I'm not sure yet what direction “rapid dissent” will take from here on out. Ranting about politics and indulging in the odd conspiracy theory is great fun, don't get me wrong, but I'm not sure I've got the energy to continue screaming into the ether.

For the time being, my only dissent will be against urge to say nothing at all.

Happy New Year.

Labels: bloggers, blogging, family

2006 was a year of momentous change for me and this site. Thanks to everyone for your continued support and readership throughout all of my ups and downs this past year. I'll spare you the obligatory "I'll post more in the new year," crap. I'll do my best, and I hope you'll come around to check out the site from time to time.

This year I spent a lot of time studying data mining and personal privacy, specifically as they apply to security, national and otherwise. In doing so I've wrestled with the concepts of identity, privacy, and secrecy. My investigation so far has been as much technical as philosophical, and I feel as if I've only barely scratched the surface.

I'm still working through some of my conclusions, but for now here's some raw data to chew on.

Labels: bloggers, blogging

Had a corporate training today.

I've never thought myself the type to say it, but it was mostly painless. In fact I actually enjoyed it. I do have some feed back for the higher-ups, but that's neither here nor there.

At the moment I'm listening to dj BC's first and second (.torrent) Beastles albums via boing boing while trying to fine tune an install of Ubuntu on an old POS P3 box. Sweet beyond words. The music and lyrics are a confluence of ideas that approach an ideal conversation that I never quite reached with my father. I would like to think that we could have listened to this together and enjoyed it thoroughly.

Maybe his grandchildren will appreciate the sentiment if not the execution.

Here's hoping.

Labels: bloggers, blogging, Music, technology, Ubuntu

You provide the story, and I'll provide the war. Familiar yes, but has the system really changed all that much since then? How much of our current mediascape is true? Just how many shapers of our reality are there? One-Hundred? Fifty? Twenty? Now another question, how much of what these writers write becomes fact? You know: Global Fact. This is something that happened. Period. That kind of fact.

Given that in the past media moguls created wars to sell papers, is it so far afield to ask if the reverend Sun Myung Moon or Ted Turner produced a press release then passed it off as a "leak" from the White House or Pentagon, what exactly would stop them from presenting it as news? Another hypothetical while you chew on that: Would any other news outlet - i.e. the 99 other hypothetical makers of our collective realities - ever, ever call bullshit? Or would they just roll with it, safe in the knowledge that maybe next time they'd get the "scoop".

This idea is no more far fetched than the notion that the Administration works the weekly news cycle to its advantage; See: Releasing unfavorable economic and environmental studies late on a Friday afternoon.

Paranoid yet? Don't be. Just turn off your fucking T.V.

Labels: bloggers, blogging, media

I'm not a sports fan. Never have been, really. So I'm not as accustomed as some to the experience of loosing. Oh, I've lost before - games, races, contests, etc. - but watching a team you supported loose is something different altogether. Especially in politics.

The feeling is worse than loss. It's closer to rejection. Dealing with that has been difficult for most of us who don't support the current Administration. I still havn't seen a major catharsis in the any-one-but Bush community. It's January, and I think we're still floating free. There is no singular voice of leadership in opposition to the Bush Administration to rally behind. Howard Dean was the closest we came until the pep-rally scream incident was played by the media, the right, and the entrenched left for all it was worth. But Dean might yet have his say.

Here's hoping.

At any rate, analysis is not acceptance. Nor is it particularly constructive at this point. The NeoCons are shaping our future today. That's a fact. Waiting until 2008 for another cheap compromise ticket is not an option I'm particularly looking forward to. And to be honest, ranting and raving at every injustice, inaptitude, and outright deception perpetrated by BushCo just doesn't sit well with me either. To do so would be repeating the mistakes of the past. They are framing the argument everyday, and we are left with nothing but our own tails to chase in the echochamber of our blogs. Hence my prolonged silence here.

Fortunately, things change.

Labels: 2004 election, 2008 Election, bloggers, blogging, neocon

I've added some new sections to the blog. No content yet, but sections are a good start. They allude to content. It's implied, one might say. More soon. CSS is our friend.

Labels: bloggers, blogging, CSS, Internet, technology

The new.

I've spent the last couple of days giving myself a crash course on css. Hopefully that's obvious.

The cool.

Newsmap is a my newest, most favoritest toy. It's an app that shows a graphical representation of the amount of "ink" individual stories are getting via Google News. Awesome.

The real.

600 American lives lost so far, and it's about to get a whole lot worse.

"KUFA, Iraq, April 4 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - After U.S.-led occupation forces killed 20 of his supporters in An-Najaf and two others during a raid on his office in Baghdad, Shiite leader Moqtada Sadr urged his followers to "terrorize the enemy" because protests have become useless."

"BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Seven U.S. soldiers were killed in clashes with supporters of a leading Shiite cleric in a Baghdad neighborhood Sunday, military officials told CNN. "

Labels: bloggers, blogging, CSS, Internet, iraq, Mehdi Army, Moqtada al-Sadr, technology

In mid-2003 the average American had grown isolated from the global community. A common attitude in many parts of the United States could be summarized thusly: “If someone doesn’t like America, fuck them. Fuck the French, fuck the U.N. and fuck those hippie scumbag protesters out in the streets.”

The Bush Administration’s policy of continuous war for continuous profit was criticized by many constituencies, but the “opposition” party fielded no fewer than nine candidates for the election in 2004. The Democratic party was plagued in the early primary season by the inability to organize the bulk of their membership behind a single candidate. This problem was solved by one candidate’s swift adoption of the Internet as a legitimate medium for serious political debate.

During that summer of odd weather, momentous discoveries, and strange occurrences few people noticed the subtle games being played in the nation’s places of power.

The news had been flooded for months with stories of war and weapons of mass destruction. Every office in America had suddenly spawned pundits in the fields of International Law, Military Science, and Politics in general. The populace was numb with talk of precision strikes, the forced exile of foreign leaders, and the role of the American military around the globe.

In the lingering glow of Baghdad’s destruction, the United States made itself ready to lead the world into the greatest period of weapons proliferation ever recorded.

The United States had pioneered use of high-precision weaponry during the first Gulf War in 1993. Guided missiles were used to great effect in destroying specific buildings in a crowded city, and leveling bridges with a single shot. Forever gone were the days of carpet bombing.

After swift success in annihilating the Taliban regime in Afghanistan with judicious use of precision weapons and special forces operations, the Bush Administration set its sights on the so-called “Axis of Evil.” According to George W. Bush, three nations comprised this axis: Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. While Iran and North Korea were well-known to be engaged in nuclear research with the goal of producing a weapon, it is now generally agreed that Iraq had no such program following the destruction of its fledgling nuclear research facility by Israel in 1993.

President Bush, armed with doctored intelligence reports and a determination to go to war, falsely argued that Iraq not only had a nuclear weapons program, but also vast, uncounted stores of chemical and biological weapons. He erroneously claimed these weapons could be used against the United States if the Iraqi government sold them. To this day no such weapons have yet been found.

Gulf War II saw the first use of a super bomb known as a MOAB or Big Blue in combat. At that time, it was the largest, most powerful non-nuclear weapon ever conceived. Video of a test of the MOAB was distributed to the international media before the war. No public outcry beyond a growing global anti-war movement was generated by news that the weapon would likely be used in the war. Experimental thermobaric weapons used months earlier in Afghanistan similarly drew little public criticism.

The trend of public apathy towards U.S. production and use of weapons of mass destruction was also apparent in the lack of media coverage and public outcry concerning Agent Orange and Napalm; two weapons of mass destruction which once commanded extremely high buzz-factor in the United States only a decade earlier.

The stage was set for the U.S. Department of Defense and its industry partners to re-kindle America’s love affair with nuclear weapons. With public outrage no-longer a factor in the United States nuclear policy, all that stood in the way was a moratorium on nuclear weapons testing declared in 1992. That moratorium was debated at the now historic Offutt Conference in August 2003 on the anniversaries of the first and – until that point – only uses of nuclear weapons in combat; the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States of America.

The argument was made that the casualties of the second Gulf War could have been avoided had the first surgical strike of the war, known as the “decapitation” strategy, been successful. The Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein, and his top advisers had been tracked to a specific building in Baghdad. The building was destroy by precision bombs and missiles. Saddam and his inner circle escaped with there lives. Had the bombs and missiles been low-yield nuclear “bunker busters” instead of conventional weapons, the Generals claimed, the Iraqi regime would have crumbled instantly.

Their theories were tested in the next war. But that’s a different story for a different time.

Labels: bloggers, blogging, iraq, MOAB, Offutt Conference, thermobaric weapons

I was doing some research tonight and tried to find a particular link that I know I had blogged at one point. That archive of posts is getting pretty deep. My high hopes that a search for "rapid dissent" and the object of my research on google were dashed instantly. I was going to have to this the old fashioned way: I had to go back and read my own blog. It was unusual. Like reading old term papers.

Anyway, I ran across this gem from April 3rd, 2003. The links still work. Not to shabby for a washed-up, armchair intel analyst if I do say so myself:

"When you sit down across from an opponent at chess, or tic-tac-toe for that matter, it’s not very difficult to play that opponent to a draw – even if they’re a “better” player than you. If you have no intention of winning from the start, you can turn the game into a very frustrating exercise for your adversary; Especially if instead of a single match, you play a series of long, slow matches. It’s obvious that the superior player will win in the end, but who’s counting the pawns?

In reading about what’s likely to become “The Siege of Baghdad,” I’ve had to ask myself, what is an acceptable end-game for Saddam Hussein at this point? He’s not in this battle to actually win – that option doesn’t exist for him. The best he can do is inflict as much damage to US forces as possible, and hope that world and US public opinion will eventually further hamstring the Pentagon’s efforts to fight this war the way they want and need to in order to minimize the loss of American lives. This is, of course, monstrous – but all’s fair.

In my mind, it’s logical to ask what the magic number is. That being the number of US casualties Saddam Hussein’s forces must inflict before his death for this entire operation to be considered a costly “failure” on the part of the United States. In other words, how many US lives will it take before history regards this war as Vietnam II, instead of Gulf War II?

Numerically, I think it’ll take far less than the number of lives lost in Vietnam. I also think it will take far less time. The stakes are much, much higher here. The US is using 21st century technology: a constellation of intelligence satellites, precision guided bombs, special forces, the best of the best of the best…against troops employing soviet era, rusting, dilapidated armaments.

So far, we know that the US troops on the ground have had some difficultly. It’s widely believed that Donald Rumsfeld and the Bush Administration wanted to not only do this "on the cheap,” but also to show how much the US could do with so little effort. The plan was to show the entire Axis of Evil how easy it is for the US to cut through a nation like a hot knife through butter – just like Afghanistan. North Korea and Iran are watching this unfold just as attentively as China was watching the first Gulf War. This is an international parade and review of the United States top weaponry and intelligence capabilities – every fuck-up and short-coming is being noted by military and diplomatic analysts world-wide. The precise outcome of this war will have serious long-term geo-political consequences.

So what’s the magic number? How many Americans need to die before the American public begins to loose confidence in its Discovery Channel education on the methods of modern warfare? 1,000? 2,500? 5,000? So far the count is at 78, and the siege of Baghdad has yet to begin.

Republican Guard forces have been steadily falling back to Baghdad. Behind them they’ve left skeleton crews and heavy armaments that have been “melting” away against the superior US offensive. These forces have not surrendered, nor have they been added to casualty lists. Where are they? A “standoff” in Baghdad appears eminent.

If the Bush administration pushes our troops into Baghdad, the odds of our “winning” this war in the history books get a whole lot worse. But what are the alternatives?

1. Decisive military victory: Saddam and his top officials get taken out one-by-one or en masse by special forces or surgical missile strikes before US regulars must enter the city limits. This is an on-going operation, and has thus far proven very difficult. This type of operation consumes vast amounts of intelligence resources, and risks high profile US casualties and POWs for the Iraqi regime to parade as propaganda – not to mention the potential of loss of sensitive materials (i.e. frequency lists, maps, etc.) or equipment carried by these personnel which could be later exploited by Iraqi forces should even one of the missions fail.

2. Siege, and diplomacy. The city is surrounded. Water, electricity, and food supplies are cut-off. Another ultimatum is issued calling for the head of Saddam and his top officials. Exile might also be put back on the table. At best this might result in an internal coup which has failed to materialize as of yet. This strategy commits US forces to entering the city eventually should the plan fail. It also has a time limit – the “humanitarian crisis” clock will begin ticking the moment the city’s water supplies are turned-off.

3. Shock and awe. Remember this old hat? Well it’s still an option. In fact – although I might be giving too much credit to the administration here – the battle plan up until this point, including the “setbacks,” may have all been part of a scheme to draw Saddam and his forces off-guard before the final implementation of this ambitious strategy. With several tens of thousands of US troops on the “threshold of the city,” shock and awe has a legitimate chance of striking fear and terror into troops stationed in Baghdad. A mass surrender at this point would scuttle any of Saddam’s plans. The problem is this: Do we have enough bombs left for shock and awe? Reports have been trickling out that the US forces are running out of costly precision missiles and bombs. Although it’s worth noting that we haven’t yet seen the use of the MOAB/“Big Blue” super bombs touted in the days before the initial strike of the war. Has the administration been saving them until this point? Will it matter if they have?

I’m sure there are more options available to our military planners as our troops approach Baghdad. These are just the ones that came to the top of my head this morning. Time will tell in the end, but I sincerely hope that the current strategy of a “final battle inside the capital” is not what we will see unfold. Street-to-street fighting in Baghdad will be like sending our troops into an urban warfare meat grinder, or perhaps even a chemical trap. All the while, Saddam and his forces will keep-on playing for a draw, and the rest of us will be left counting the pawns."

Labels: bloggers, blogging, iraq

Via Metafilter:

"Dude. To hell with moving to Canada. I'm not giving up that easily. This may not be the best time to be a liberal, but why concede? Secede! With the 5th largest economy in the world, prodigious industry, a diverse population, rich natural resources, and a growing rift with the federal government, why is California sharing a budget with the unbeautiful when we could be enjoying our very own Republic? Is it for lack of leadership? Or lack of a clue?
posted by scarabic at 5:24 PM PST [trackback] (27 comments total)"

California? California!? What about New England?

Here we are: Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and of course the two Behemoths – Massachusetts and Connecticut – just waiting for the chance to start anew. For fuck’s sake I thought we had pretty much taken control of the situation back in 1861. Apparently not.

Yes, by all means, let California secede the Union, and let the rest of us do it too. It’s not as if we can do a worse job on our own. According to the original argument we needed a strong centralized, federal government to protect us from foreign powers…to keep our individual rights as free citizens intact, but now it’s that same government that threatens to curb our rights and freedoms. This is unacceptable; In fact it is intolerable.

If the current configuration of the United States of America – a simple matter of relative form and function which itself would seem utterly strange and alien to the Founders – no longer meets the needs of the people, then it should be altered.

This right was guaranteed to us by the Founders decision to recognize the Constitution as an imperfect, living document. They understood the fundamental importance of change within a democracy. It is time for a change worthy of that understanding to occur.

We want equity. We want justice. We want a system in which one individual human being has as much say in our governance as any other human being. Granted, this thought scared the living shit out of the founders – indeed it might scare the shit out of any one of us after viewing a few hours of NASCAR or a professional wrestling event – but it is time to accept democracy in earnest…warts and all.

But not nationally. The founders were correct – at least in that respect – in assuming that a complete democracy would lead only to complete ruin. Therefore I propose a compromise; a re-evaluation of the original democratic experiment that was the United States of America.

Once upon a time there were the Articles of Confederation. They existed for a few short years, and were later replaced by the system of governance under which we now reside. Times have changed; we have matured as a nation.

There are many, many forms of democracy available to us. All of them are 100% “legal” under the U.S. Constitution. All it takes – as with any great deed – is the will and the patience to make it happen. Just as our nation survived the transition from the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution, so too must our system of governance evolve into something new before is it torn asunder.

If California wishes to leave the union I wish them well, but I would first ask the citizens of that state to consider this: If we as U.S. citizens are willing to take so bold a step as to consider such a proposition, would it not be equally as sound to consider even bolder alternatives to our current means of experiencing democracy?

If we are going to change this nation, then let's fucking change it. Let’s build this thing to last. Let’s take the broken dreams and promises of the Founders and make them real. It’s not as if we have anything to loose.

Right, wrong, or indifferent, one must agree that there's never been a nation more wealthy or more powerful than the United States of America at this very moment. Our nation is – in fact – so rich and so mighty that each and every American citizen should be experiencing the spoils of our success. All I propose is that we do just that.

A change is necessary. I believe that a radical change in the way in which we continue this experiment of democracy, started so long ago, would be a welcome one. Let us reconsider these arbitrary lines on maps that we call “State Lines,” and instead view ourselves as we really are: As citizens of small, distinct nations bound together by common ideals, not imaginary borders.

“California” is no more or less unique than any other region of our nation. It just happens to be encompassed within the boundaries of a “state” (a divided one at that). New England is no different; nor is any other geo-political region of the land-mass within the area known as the United States of America.

Let this union of peoples and places recast itself in the crucible of freedom before we shatter it on the anvil of tyranny.

Labels: bloggers, blogging, founders

Each and every one of us is a node on the web. We are all necessary. If one of us goes down, we all go down.

Well, not exactly, but what if it were true? Even for a few of us. We'd all be in the shiter.

I'm no fan of rampant legislation for security, or corporate spying, but come on; Take care of your god damn machine.

These things called computers help us live our lives in ways we can't even imagine. Is it worth it to risk them? Hell no. Upgrade the dammed system when it needs to be upgraded at home. Demand that it be upgraded at work if it's not already. Jobs are at stake here.

Our economy can not handle a major attack. The fact that some companies give the federal government a heads up on security issues is admirable - I won't go into how I think that the government should be the ones alerting industry to these issues instead of the other way around - but home networks need to be secure too.

Is my machine secure? I don't know, but I'm sure as shit going to spend some time with her to figure it out.

Without us, the individual users, the internet is nothing. With things going the way they are, we can't afford to let this get away from us; We must protect our systems.

Update. Update often, and check-out those anomalies. Odds are, you're going to find a problem long before the Department of Homeland Security is.

I'll leave it at that.

Labels: bloggers, blogging, Cybersecurity, technology

“Dr Mark Salter, co-coordinator of the WHO Clinical Management Group…said the world should learn to live with a virus that was serious but not hugely infectious, and may already have become part of our environment.”

Um…What?!

So I guess that’s it then…we’re fucked. I hate to sound like an alarmist here, but this is just too big not to take seriously. SARs is far from harmless, and the world can’t afford to “get used” it.

The bottom line is that the SARs virus has been identified as a new type of corona virus – it’s a kissing cousin of the same little shit that causes the common cold. When is the last time you had a cold? What did you take for it? Chicken soup? If you did, it probably helped about at much as all the other crap you tried: Very little, or not at all. The common cold can't be vaccinated against. It also can’t be “cured” once you've got it. The best you can do is take as much as you can to mitigate the symptoms until the virus runs it course, and your body is finally able to fight it off. See the problem here?

This is a cold that can kill, and the World Health Organization is telling us they can’t do anything about it. Including statistics for the cases in China and Hong Kong the worldwide mortality rate for SARs is about 6%. However, because these numbers are highly suspect, some people have put the mortality rate closer to a range of 10-to-20%. That’s just for the 2003 SARS season, what about 2004? 2005?

If you’re the type of person who gets at least one cold a year – which I believe is nearly every mere mortal on Earth – you might want to concern yourself with the spread of SARS.

Thankfully, no one has died from SARS in the US. But that won’t always be the case. There are a lot of people here who don’t have health coverage, so not all of the cases have been reported. There may be many – some possibly fatal - cases of SARS here that we haven’t heard about yet. Don’t rely on the government to tell you whether your safe or not; They don’t know.

If you don’t have health insurance, get it soon. Until then (unless you can afford treatment, and don’t mind getting whacked with one hell of a flu for a week):

- Avoid traveling on planes, trains, and buses.

- Stay out of theaters and auditoriums.

- Do not go to parades, rallies, or any other large gathering of people.

- Wash your hands often – really often.

- If you work at an office don’t use another person’s mouse or key board before sanitizing it. The same goes for public restrooms (On second thought, it’s probably best to avoid these all together).

- Finally, if you live or work in a city, wear a damn mask (Think of it as duct tape and plastic sheeting for your face).

The 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic killed as many as 40 million people. Sure that was a long time ago, and medicine has gotten a lot better since, but that was also before any and every ass-munch on Earth could jump on a flight to anywhere – or several anywheres for that matter. If the lowest estimated mortality rate of 3% is accurate, we’re looking at 186 million deaths worldwide. That’s our minimum. A maximum mortality rate of 20% will reduce the global population by 1.24 billion people. Either way, it’s not looking good for team Homo Sapien.

The spread of this virus will not stop, and it looks like we’re on our own until this thing mutates itself to death and goes away for another hundred years.

But hey, at least Tariq Aziz is in custody!

Labels: bloggers, blogging, sars

If you’re a religious fundamentalist, please just stop reading right now and go back to whatever it is fanatics and zealots do on the net.

There are a lot of religions. Almost all of them have similar basic tenants: Don’t kill, don’t steal, treat others the way you’d want to be treated, love/tolerate each other, and forgive each other as much as you can stand. Fairly simple stuff, right? They’ve proven to be excellent guidelines for building a stable, productive human society. So what the hell is the matter with our world?

The problem isn't the tenants of faith, it’s the fundamentalists who practice it. (Caveat: For the sake of brevity, and because the majority of folks on Earth practice one flavor or another of Judeo-Christian faith, I’m excluding paganism, animalism, ancestor worship, polytheism, and duality from this entry).

A long time ago someone said “Hey, I’ve got a great set of rules to ensure humanity survives and prospers without petty infighting and conflict – let’s call it ‘religion’.” Of course, it being so long ago, most people looked at the guy and said, “Huh?”.

“Well,” the guy said, “what if I told you that you can live forever in paradise if you follow the rules?”. Naturally, that got some of the people’s attention, but not everyone was convinced. So the guy told them, “How about this: If you DON’T follow these rules, you’ll burn the fiery pits of doom for all eternity.” Now that got just about everyone else to sign-on. Those who didn’t were systematically killed or driven-off into the dessert by the first fundamentalists...despite the fact that this was a complete violation of the rules they were supposed to follow. Ah, humans. What can ya do?

That pretty much brings us up to modern day. We’ve got the faithful who want their paradise, the faithful who fear eternal damnation, and a few non-believers who more or less get marginalized from society and become scientists and academics (For a while there the non-believers actually gained a small foothold, but the Bush Administration has been doing it’s best to take care of that). Somewhere between the past and the present, getting into heaven - and staying out of hell - became a pyramid scheme. Again, this was the work of fundamentalists.

For the fundamentalist, being faithful and doing good deeds isn’t enough to get your wings. You’ve got to go above and beyond. You’ve got to be a go-getter! What do you have to go and get to avoid the pitch forks and pools of fire? Why, souls of course! Whether you want to call it the Crusades, Manifest Destiny, or Gulf War II fundamentalists have been doing their damnedest for a long, long time to ensure that theirs is the only true faith – one way or another.

These aren’t people who go to church every Sunday and visit the elderly. These are people who believe with all their hearts that – potentially in our lifetimes – God Himself will drop from the sky one day and smite the Earth, destroying all life as we know it...except for them. They are willing to kill or die for this belief, regardless of the fact that this blind fervor is a contradiction to the basis of their faith. It’s their way, or the highway. Hmm, now why does that sound familiar?

I never really paid much mind to religious folks in the past. They went their way, and I went mine; All was right with the world. I figured as long as no one was rounding-up people and burning them at stakes we were doing OK. Now I’m not so sure.

Evolution is fact. Stem cell research will save human lives. These are truths. You can observe them, study them, and reproduce their results in a controlled setting – they are REAL. The Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, speaking in tongues, and faith healing are bunk. Even people who say are “religious” generally agree with these statements, but ask a fundamentalist and all hell breaks loose (In all honesty I think they'd probably let the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus thing slide).

I say fine, let’s give them speaking in tongues and faith healing if they’re so touchy about it, but I’ll be damned if I’m going let them take evolution and stem cells. Those belong to us. They're what WE believe in, and no one can take them away. That’s not going to stop them from trying.

The fundamentalists controlling our government are dangerous. They’re jeopardizing our future by screwing-up our present. I don’t care if they pray in public buildings and I don’t care if they refer to supreme beings in their speeches, but I DO care if they start slashing funding for scientific research, and begin pushing religious agendas in our public schools and universities. Religion has about as much place in our government as it does in the operating room. You want to put your faith in God? Good for you, but stay out of my hospital.

I’m not an anti-religious person, everyone has the right to believe what they will, but the snake-dancers and cultists in Washington are going too far. As Americans it's our duty to oppose this religious coup d'tat. The fate of our freedoms, and our country depend on it.

The Founders believed in a supreme being, but they also fought like hell to keep religion out of our government. They established our nation on the rationalistic tenants of logic, law, and science over 200 years ago. Isn’t it about damn time we lived up to their expectations?

"I am not about to become a Leader or Follower in Theology. To my own Master I stand or fall." ~ John Adams

"The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole "volume" of human nature, by the hand of divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power." ~ Alexander Hamilton

"I never was without some religious principles. I never doubted, for instance, the existence of the Deity; that he made the world, and govern'd it by his Providence; that the most acceptable service to God was the doing good to man; that our souls are immortal; and that all crime will be punished and virtue rewarded, either here or hereafter. These I esteem'd the essentials of every religion; and, being to be found in all the religions we had in our country, I respected them all, tho' with different degrees of respect, as I found them more or less mix'd with other articles, which, without any tendency to inspire, promote or confirm morality, ser'd principally to divide us, and make us unfriendly to one another." ~ Benjamin Franklin

"Whenever... preachers, instead of a lesson in religion, put [their congregation] off with a discourse on the Copernican system, on chemical affinities, on the construction of government, or the characters or conduct of those administering it, it is a breach of contract, depriving their audience of the kind of service for which they are salaried, and giving them, instead of it, what they did not want, or, if wanted, would rather seek from better sources in that particular art of science." ~ Thomas Jefferson

Labels: bloggers, blogging, founders, fundamentalism, religion

Last week I almost lost my father to a pain in the neck. Dad did what any of us would do: He took some aspirin. But the pain got worse. He saw a doctor. The pain got worse. In two weeks he couldn’t hold a coffee cup to his lips; Walking was agony.

Despite repeated pleas to his doctor, he had to wait for an appointment for the MRI necessary to diagnose his condition. The results, his doctor’s office told him, would be back in two weeks. That was Wednesday.

By the time got to Rhode Island on Friday, dad was unconscious in a neck brace on a gurney in the emergency room of a local hospital. The rest of my family, already there, told me they were waiting for an ambulance to take him to the trauma unit of another, larger hospital. It was 15 minutes away. We waited an hour-and-a-half.

Another hour after getting to the second hospital – at which I arrived before the ambulance – a neurosurgeon told us that “time is of the essence.” He also told us dad’s chances were less than 50/50.

A small tumor had lodged itself inside one of the disks in dad’s neck. The mass was growing inside the cavity his spinal cord passed through, and was slowly crushing it.

When dad woke-up from the “extraordinary” surgery, he felt no more pain. He didn’t feel a lot of things. As I type this, dad is in a hospital bed hundreds of miles away barely able to breathe without a respirator. He can move his head, and his right arm – somewhat. As for the rest, we’ll have to wait and see.

Dad’s spirits are good. He’s glad to be alive. The rest of us are each dealing with it in our own way. Mom goes to the hospital every morning at 8, and stays for twelve hours or so. She’s the strongest woman I’ve ever met.

My sister comes in a close second. She works third shift, then goes straight to the hospital. No one can survive long on 2 or 3 hours of sleep a day, but that hasn’t stopped her yet.

My brother, the eldest, is there every day. Managing a small business and raising a family of his own hasn’t prevented him from making the daily trek from Cape Cod to see mom and dad.

My wife, brother-, and sister-in-law have been the glue holding the rest of us together. They’ve hung back in the wings; There with unflinching support, but also aware that each of us tends to prefer solitude in times of crisis. We’re an introspective bunch, and I don’t envy them for having married into our odd little family, but I’m damn glad they did.

Thanks to everyone out there for all the support and well wishes. Please keep them coming. Check back here for updates as this blog returns to its regularly scheduled programming.

Labels: bloggers, blogging, family, Rhode Island

I hate self-righteous bloggers who watch the news like vultures, posting every headline of even minor importance just so they can say, “See, I told ya so!” a few weeks later when the mainstream news finally catches up. Poor CNN, they never even saw it coming. Oh well.

But I’m not one of those smarmy blogging pseudo-intellectuals who would declare “You heard it here first” after scooping every major news outlet in America. Nope, not me. That would imply that I take pride in scouring the web for news and cool stuff 8 to 12 hours a day. I don’t. It’s a sickness really, and I probably couldn’t stop if I wanted to. Now, if there were just some way to make a living as an intelligence analyst outside the military…

Anywho, here’s an update on the US-backed, post-Saddam leader of Iraq via ABC News Online, Austrailia:

Missing Iraqi General in Kuwait after CIA aided Denmark escape

Why it’s none other than Nizar al-Khazraji, the former Iraqi Army Chief of Staff who disappeared from Denmark – where he was under house arrest while being tried for war crimes (when will they just get over gassing people to death, sheesh!) – back on March 17th. What a surprise!

Not to worry though, the CIA says he’s A-OK with the USA. He’s a GOOD (suspected) mass-murdering fuck-head TM.

I’m going to take a nap now.

Labels: bloggers, blogging, cia, iraq, media, Nizar al-Khazraji

I have no idea what is happening in the world anymore. It could be the lingering effects of the massive amounts of pain killers I’ve been taking – the only GOOD thing about my experience in undergoing invasive surgery at a facility run by the US Department of Veteran’s Affairs (The same incompetent slobs who are about to suffer massive budgetary cuts so the Bush administration can “afford” to line the pockets of our nation’s most wealthy citizens). Or it could be that there’s just a hell of a lot going on right now, and no one seems to have a handle on any of it except this guy. This is, of course, disconcerting.

I’m reminded of the final scene in Star Wars: A New Hope (“from the Adventures of Luke Skywalker” for you purists out there). It was the assault on the Death Star – the Empire’s ultimate weapon (Although in hindsight we should have guessed that it was just a prototype, and that the Empire was secretly building a bigger, badder Death Star battle station all along. But I digress).

Despite all the confusion of that epic fight, two things are permanently burned into my memory. The first is the line “Stay on target!”, referring to the small thermal exhaust port the rebel insurgents were gunning for in their attempt to destroy the Death Star with a single, well placed proton torpedo. The second is Porkins.

Porkins has nothing to do with anything else in the movie – or the trilogy for that mater (I say trilogy because there are only three Star Wars movies in my reality). He’s just a fat schmuck who lives his life under the increasingly oppressive thumb of the Empire until he just can’t stand it anymore. He finally works up the courage to do something about it one day, and joins the rebellion. Leaving his shity life behind, Porkins works his ass off to become a skilled X-Wing star fighter pilot, and eventually makes it into the rebel’s feared Red Squadron. Then - about a minute and thirty seconds after his character is introduced – his X-Wing is vaporized. If that’s not the most depressing thing you’ve ever heard…Well, you’re just dead inside.

At any rate, the phrase “Stay on target” has been echoing in my mind the past few days as I’ve been reading the news. The war, SARS, the RIAA, a laughable budget…it just doesn’t stop. Every time I read something and think “Shit, it just doesn’t get any more screwed-up than that,” another headline comes along.

I’m left asking myself if it’s always been like this? Has the United States always teetered on the edge of ruin, and we’re just now coming to realize it because news gets disseminated so quickly these days? Or have we progressed to an actual point of no return after generations of over-consumption, political corruption, and public apathy?

I’m still trying to figure it all out, but one thing I do know is this: I’m not going out like Porkins.

Labels: bloggers, blogging, media

A WARMONGER EXPLAINS WAR TO A PEACENIK
By Anonymous

Labels: bloggers, blogging

I am alive, and back on my ass - soon to be on my feet - after surgery this week. Trapped in a hospital without Internet access for a week damn near killed me, but now I'm back. I'm still highly medicated, and I can think of no better time than now to start posting to this blog again. Call it a restart.

Speaking of which, how about that war? WTF? I'm out of it for a little while and everyone starts having delusions of grandeur.

Donald Rumsfeld wants a do-over? His strategy has backdoored our troops who are now entrenched the middle of the desert, without supplies, surrounded by hostile forces. Can anyone tell me how this can get any worse?

Let's pretend we don't know anything about Vietnam, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, or Northern Ireland for a moment. No wait, I forgot, we can't; our troops are fucked, and it's all the Bush Administration's fault. It was bad enough that they got us into this war by screwing-up diplomatic efforts to disarm Iraq without war, now they're practically admitting that their grand strategy was a bluff, and that thousands of US lives depend on the re-establishment of secure supply lines throughout the entirety of country about the size of California...Without over-flight rights. Yeah, that shouldn't take too long. All the while there will be body bags coming home.

So now what? How the hell do we get our troops home? We have two options.

1. Call a cease-fire: Pullout now. Go to the UN and apologize. Send Rumsfeld, Perle, and Cheney - or any other assortment of Administration officials - down the river. That's right - send them to jail. They screwed this up, and the only way to keep it from getting worse is to crack a few eggs - just like they're willing to do with our troops. Either it's these millionaire bastards going to The Hague and eating bon bons with other moronic nation-ruling fat cats, or it’s our troops in the desert over several months of uncertain conflict. Sorry, but if we can simultaneously pull out of the war, rebuild relationships with the world community on a diplomatic level, and throw a bone to the Muslims of the world who are none too fucking happy right now, I say do it. If this is horribly unpalatable to red-blooded, freedom loving Americans, then there is always option two.

2. Do it. Fire Rumsfeld. Appoint Norman Schwarzkopf Secretary of Defense, and allow the Pentagon to do its job: fight this war. Congress gives the troops every red cent they need to take Iraq, and more importantly gives them permission to take Iraq by any means necessary. You want this war over quick, then you damn well better be willing to kill every male Muslim in the Middle East old enough to even think about fighting back. Black-ops, CIA operations, drug and weapons swaps, black market economic destabilization, and old school Iran-Contra style deception. I'm talking about a police state that covers the entirety of the Middle East. Oh, someone from Iran was found in Iraq with a gun? Guess what pal you just got yourself a problem with the big dog. This of course will lead to mass civilian casualties in several nations and worldwide hatred for the United States and everything we claim to stand for - but we'll have won the war!

There is no middle ground here. There can be no appeasement. Either we take responsibility for our actions as a nation, and fire a couple of big names from the administration, make examples of them, and call it a day, or we fight this war as if our very survival on the face of this planet depended on it. Anything else will only lead to more delay and more death. The lives of our fellow Americans are worth far more the lives of the scum that have sent them into this war.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it. And please hope for a swift and just end to this horrible tragedy.

Labels: bloggers, blogging, Donald Rumsfeld, iraq

Via CNet:

Israel warns Web sites on war coverage

WASHINGTON--Israel's top government censor has warned Web sites in her country not to publish sensitive information about the war with Iraq.

Chief Censor Rachel Dolev sent a letter on Wednesday to "scoop" news sites, instructing editors to seek government permission before publishing information about "materials that could pose a threat to the security of the State of Israel and its residents."

Labels: bloggers, blogging, media, Shock and Awe

Tonight, for better or worse, America is at war. Tonight, every American, regardless of party, devoutly supports the safety and success of our men and women in the field. Those of us who, over the past 6 months, have expressed deep concerns about this President's management of the crisis, mistreatment of our allies and misconstruction of international law, have never been in doubt about the evil of Saddam Hussein or the necessity of removing his weapons of mass destruction.

Those Americans who opposed our going to war with Iraq, who wanted the United Nations to remove those weapons without war, need not apologize for giving voice to their conscience, last year, this year or next year. In a country devoted to the freedom of debate and dissent, it is every citizen's patriotic duty to speak out, even as we wish our troops well and pray for their safe return. Congressman Abraham Lincoln did this in criticizing the Mexican War of 1846, as did Senator Robert F. Kennedy in calling the war in Vietnam "unsuitable, immoral and intolerable."

This is not Iraq, where doubters and dissenters are punished or silenced --this is the United States of America. We need to support our young people as they are sent to war by the President, and I have no doubt that American military power will prevail. But to ensure that our post-war policies are constructive and humane, based on enduring principles of peace and justice, concerned Americans should continue to speak out; and I intend to do so.

Howard Dean needs us to win the Democratic primaries. Be sure that you are registered to vote. Be sure that your registration indicates Democrat as your party of preference (if necessary in your state). Vote in the primaries. Vote in the general election. Do everything you can to take our country back.

Labels: 2004 election, bloggers, blogging, howard dean, iraq

I had a vivid dream the other night. I was looking at a map of a small city, and discussing a political scandal with someone off-screen. Yes, I dream in movie shots. I blame my childhood nanny: Zenith.

The scandal involved two judges on the local supreme court. The judges had been criminally negligent in their duties while hearing an important case. Each night, after courtroom deliberations, the judges would go to a pub where they drank the night away while discussing the case. The scandal emerged when someone taped their conversations. The tapes revealed that the judges were completely ignorant of the evidence and facts of the case, but were ready to pass judgment anyway.

On the map I could see two dots (the judges) moving as if they were being tracked by some all-seeing eye. They were stumbling home from the pub, and I could hear them talking. More dots appeared, and moved to intercept the judges. These dots were federal agents. As the two sets of dots converged on the map, I was transported into the scene on the street.

The judges had disappeared, and I was alone with the agents. All of them were armed with sub-machine guns.

A derelict brick building - an old mill – stood across the cobblestone street from us. Planks of wood secured the only door into the mill. Something moved behind them in the darkness.

The wood was torn aside by a man in some sort of odd, red and black uniform as he emerged from the doorway. He was not alone. More armed men in uniform, poured from the door and fired on the agents. Under fire, I grabbed for a gun dropped by a fallen agent. As the agents and I shot into the group of attackers, several huge gorillas charged out of the building, and joined the melee. The more we fired, the more beasts appeared. Our weapons were over-heating and jamming. There were dozens of them; We were quickly outnumbered.

The gorillas were on us. One rushed toward me roaring, its maw filled with fangs; I felt its breath. The thing’s black eyes were intelligent, and furious - hateful. I had already dropped my first gun, and picked-up a second. It was already jammed. The agents were being torn to pieces. Then, I woke up.

I wish I could wake-up again.

Labels: bloggers, blogging

In managing any addiction, the very first step is to accept that you have a problem. My name is Ernest, and I’m a Political Science junkie.

My computer is on before my coffee pot – it's the last thing I turn off before going to bed (typically right after scanning several news sites just one last time for the night).

Clearly I have a problem.

Quitting is not an option. Political Science has been so much of my life for so long, I don’t know that I can survive without it now. It’s not a love, it’s a necessity. I need it more than food, water, or money.

I struggled for a long time with my addiction; I suppressed it, I denied it. But that time is over. From now on I will control my needs, and I will direct them.

This is no longer a reactive blog. I will not sit here and allow my country to be high jacked and steered into oblivion by neoconservative fanatics. I am an American: A free citizen with a voice and a vote, and I will use them both to hinder, to delay, and to stop the current administration from doing any more irreparable harm to our nation.

I dedicate this blog to change. The first step on the path back to America will be the 2004 Presidential Election. George W. Bush must not “win” that election.

No real alternative to the Bush administration will emerge from the Republican party. Their members have long since been beaten into submission. Not even John McCain can break the administration’s strangle hold on American conservatives – of which I am one.

Third party candidates will have their day, but this is not it. The 2004 election is too important for the long term future of our country to experiment with alternatives. Vote Green, or Reform, or Cool Moose at home – but reserve your presidential vote for someone who can win.

I’ve examined the Democratic field of contenders – it’s not pretty. Even worse, by the time next November rolls around, America is going to be ass deep in shit. Our troops will be engaged in Iraq, the North Korean problem will still persist, and at home our economy will probably be about as vibrant as it is today.

We need change like we’ve never needed it before. The election in November is our last best chance to get it. Governor Howard Dean of Vermont is the candidate who can give us what we need. Expect to see his name more on this blog in the future.

Have no fear, I’ll still be devoting plenty of time and energy to foreign policy and current events (I said I was taking the first step in overcoming this addiction), but I’ll also be paying very close attention to Dr. Dean. I hope you will do the same.

Labels: 2004 election, bloggers, blogging, George W. Bush, howard dean, neocon

JUST SHUT UP by Neal Pollack is quality. An excellent criticism of the sudden outpouring of emotion and opinions in America since September 11, 2001.

His assertion:

"Nobody gives a shit what anti-war or pro-war writers think. Really. So shut up. That goes double for poets. Shut the hell up, poets. Everybody just shut up."

I especially appreciate this piece of analysis:

"September 11, 2001, has had all kinds of unintended consequences. One of the least tragic, but most irritating, has been an explosion of absolutely terrible writing. The flow of lousy literature began almost immediately after the attacks, and has continued without pause."

As a card carrying member of the self-important, lousy writers association of America (SILWAA) - please see my credentials for membership littered throughout this blog - I welcome Neal's input.

However, to be honest, I'm probably going to continue write poorly about a great many things - including the war - on this blog.

Anyone reading this interested in a SILWAA membership can e-mail me with comments regarding posts on the blog, or any other topic you believe I might find interesting.

Labels: 9/11, bloggers, blogging, Neal Pollack