Saturday, May 31, 2003

thanks people, for all the mail client suggestions. much appreciated.


this is shifting some air at the moment. i've forgotten i had a hangover. great stuff.
posted by Ben , 7:51 PM Þ 

You are Neo
You are Neo, from "The Matrix." You
display a perfect fusion of being a sufer dude and a bad actor


What Matrix Persona Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla


Ive been working away lately in a beautiful town in Linconshire called Stamford. I havent had the opportunity to use a computer or get online for 2 weeks. The break has been nice but I've missed BLOGDIAL!! Now, a weekend to catch up with whats been posted!

Happy birthday Barrie!


A view of Stamford
posted by chriszanf , 5:24 PM Þ 
posted by Irdial , 2:41 PM Þ 

Straw, Powell had serious doubts over their Iraqi weapons claims

Secret transcript revealed

Dan Plesch and Richard Norton-Taylor
Saturday May 31, 2003
The Guardian

Jack Straw and his US counterpart, Colin Powell, privately expressed serious doubts about the quality of intelligence on Iraq's banned weapons programme at the very time they were publicly trumpeting it to get UN support for a war on Iraq, the Guardian has learned.

Their deep concerns about the intelligence - and about claims being made by their political bosses, Tony Blair and George Bush - emerged at a private meeting between the two men shortly before a crucial UN security council session on February 5.

The meeting took place at the Waldorf hotel in New York, where they discussed the growing diplomatic crisis. The exchange about the validity of their respective governments' intelligence reports on Iraq lasted less than 10 minutes, according to a diplomatic source who has read a transcript of the conversation. [...]

The Guardian
posted by Irdial , 2:24 PM Þ 
posted by Irdial , 2:20 PM Þ 


Who did this!?! I am lost for words.

all the authors names are secret, for no good reason ./a

Whoever you are, it is the best yet.
posted by Claus Eggers , 2:16 PM Þ 

Happy Birthday Barrie! Yay indeed.
posted by captain davros , 12:19 PM Þ 

May your star continue to rise...
posted by Irdial , 11:51 AM Þ 

GyazMail is another OS X Mail client. It is very good. However, it does not support IMAP as of yet, and the programmer seems reluctant at adding it, though he says he will.
I hate mail.app but I use it, because it has IMAP support (I have 5 addresses, 2 of them IMAP). The interface really is bad and it tends to get bloated and confusing after a while... but I use it anyway. No address book (aside from Apple's terrible abortion of an address book program) and no good batch mail features. But BCC works okay... I just have to paste all the addresses in, every time. It is also very sluggish for me.
Also, I turn 20 today. Yay.
posted by Barrie , 7:38 AM Þ 
Friday, May 30, 2003



How could you even think of putting those shame costumes on a cat? We understand the dignity of these fair creatures, and would never ... we also understand the reality of very tender forearm flesh ... claws win, every time.

I use Camino for a browser. It's fast and has minimal graphics. Haven't had time to try an other mail client, maybe this weekend if it rains.

Oh, and scored 32.4723%. Some one who scored 44.3787% told me about this:

Antonia Hirsch
May 31 to June 20, 2003

1.866.SPOKEN4 (1.866.776.5364 toll-free across Canada)
+1.604.696.1328 (local and international calls)

Lines Spoken For is a telephone project using the familiar voice
messaging system format. The telephone is a personal communications
device, yet it is connected to massive economic and technological
structures. Together with other new communications technologies, it
transcends the current time system, effortlessly traversing not only
space, but also time zones. The voice, however, is a visceral phenomenon
of the here and now. Whether we have 'a voice in a matter' often depends
upon our place in administrative structures that prevail inside specific
geographical boundaries.

Intertwining historical fact with fiction, Lines Spoken For focuses on
the International Date Line. This conceptual threshold between today and
tomorrow is itself a fiction of staggering proportions. Navigating
through the Kafkaesque system, callers uncover the peculiar
circumstances of a delegate to the historic Conference for the Purpose
of Fixing a Prime Meridian and a Universal Day. At this conference,
involving a select group of international stakeholders, an issue of
global importance is on the table: the location of yesterday, today and
tomorrow. Just as one day would fluidly transform into the next - were
it not for the International Date Line - Lines Spoken For exists without
temporal regulator: cause and effect and consequently the construction
of meaning is determined by the caller's navigation through the system.
Significantly, Lines Spoken For exists in a realm of ideas: without
physical presence.
posted by mary13 , 9:59 PM Þ 

I find Mozilla really fast on PC, not least the tabbed windows which allow you to look at about 15 pages in one go. As for ugly, it's skinnable! So you can even design your own if you want. Vector Red for Mozilla would be very kool.

I don't use the mail app as I am an OE fule. I'll get to it one day though.

Time for P2 experiments now.
posted by captain davros , 9:46 PM Þ 

Mozilla is slow though.

They used to say the browser is slow; I've never heard that Mozilla Mail is slow. And there is aparently a new stand alone mail app built on the Mozilla Mail code, but for stability, I would go with Mozilla Mail.

And havent they resolved this speed issue by rendering the gui natively? In any case, its a choice, rather than the absence of a choice, with which, you cannot get mail.

What are the shortcomings of OSX Mail?

And as for it being ugly, you want to get your mail with it, not fuck it!
posted by Irdial , 7:06 PM Þ 

Mozilla is slow though. And ugly. There's really not muc hin the way of mail clients on OS X. Mail.app, Eudora, Entourage or Moz...

Finder Mail seemed like an interesting idea, but it's OS 9 only, although I shouldn't think that an OS X version would be that hard to build.

Or you could be proper hardcore and use mutt or pine or something. But then you'd probably have to set up sendmail and procmail and the rest...

Or you could use telnet!

% telnet my.mail.server 110
USER: user
PASS: pass
LIST



grrrreat!
posted by alex_tea , 6:51 PM Þ 

Did you get the exhibition guide for the Chapman Bros show Alex?

Yes. I think my girlfriend must have it somewhere...

Last full day of this today
Where is it? In Oxford? Move to the bright lights, the big smoke. Or maybe not.
posted by alex_tea , 6:47 PM Þ 

Mozilla http://www.mozilla.org is the best mail client that i have ever used. Better than Eudora....its simply awesome.

Release candidate 1 for 1.4 is out now, and its perfect.

Oh and its got a browser too!
posted by Irdial , 6:23 PM Þ 

could someone recommend a good email client for mac osx. preferably open source. or cheap.
thankyou very much.
posted by Ben , 6:02 PM Þ 

Did you get the exhibition guide for the Chapman Bros show Alex? <proud>My girlfriend wrote that.</proud>
posted by captain davros , 4:26 PM Þ 



Last full day of this today - closes 1pm tomorrow.
posted by captain davros , 4:24 PM Þ 

I saw that piece at the Chapman Brother's solo (?) show in Oxford. It's free, and quite good, but I got really bored of their constant, over use of the swastika, as if they were trying to add depth and meaning by putting a swastika in every picture.
posted by alex_tea , 4:19 PM Þ 
posted by Irdial , 3:33 PM Þ 

posted by captain davros , 3:22 PM Þ 

RH9
posted by Irdial , 2:52 PM Þ 

What distro? I have Debian 3.0, Knoppix and Mandrake so far, all of which I've played with to varying degrees of success.
posted by captain davros , 2:14 PM Þ 

Linux!
posted by Irdial , 1:44 PM Þ 

Just got a Dell Dimension XPS R450 (Pentium II) from my work, for free. Any ideas on what to do with it(especially to make it a 1337 |-|@><><0|^ |<0|\|$0|3)?
posted by captain davros , 1:36 PM Þ 



marc behrens / paulo raposo
"one hour as a reinterpretation"

...is a product of a process that starts with the CD '0.000' by the japanese artist Nosei Sakata (*0), a cd which was playing back basically nothing (sound outside the human hearing range). Sakata asked other artists -among them Marc Behrens- to 'remix' this material, which was then released on the cd called '*0 - 0.000remix - INFLATION'. The idea was to create 'everything from nothing'. When Behrens received his promo copies he decided to take the process further: he used material from the reinterpretation pieces by Taylor Deupree, Hsi-Chuang Cheng, Aube, Richard Chartier, Akira Rabelais, John Hudak, Bernhard Günter, and Steve Roden to construct a further reinterpretation. After the completion of this piece, he gave it (i.e. in the form of all the single sounds used in the piece) to the portuguese artist Paulo Raposo (of Vitriol), who himself did another reinterpretation. Raposo and Behrens use different methods to compose, as well as different structural approaches, and premiered both their -however complementary- pieces in the form of a friendly 'audio duel' (like a ping pong match) on March 21, 2003 in the auditorium of the Goethe-Institut Inter Naciones in Lisbon. The show was entitled 'Further Consequences of Reinterpretation'. produced: March 2003 [marc behrens]

airs: 16:00h today, resonance 104.4 FM
posted by Ben , 12:02 PM Þ 

Bored with your cat?

Rabbit conversion kit now available.



More here
posted by captain davros , 10:28 AM Þ 

Gurrrhhh

Feeling odd today. Does anyone else ever think like this? Often when I'm riding my bike home I see people, and in the 3 seconds or so that they pass thru my field of vision I get terribly caught up in things - I look at them and what expression they have and end up thinking about all the moments they've had in their lives, all the Xmases and birthdays and boyfriends and girlfriends and so on. It nearly wipes my brain out thinking of all those moments - being happy, being sad, being how they feel right now etc, all those emotions and so on, all part of life. There are just too many to even consider, and yet they still all bubble about. I wish I didn't feel so "plugged in".
posted by captain davros , 10:13 AM Þ 

6.50888% - Poser

that feels about right ...
posted by a hymn in g to nann , 9:00 AM Þ 

The War Profiteers Card Deck
But... donations are in BUX! Bad form.
posted by Barrie , 5:36 AM Þ 

What a Tangled Web We Weave . . .

. . . when first we practice to deceive!

Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.
Dick Cheney
Speech to VFW National Convention
August 26, 2002

Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.
George W. Bush
Speech to UN General Assembly
September 12, 2002

If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world.
Ari Fleischer
Press Briefing
December 2, 2002

We know for a fact that there are weapons there.
Ari Fleischer
Press Briefing
January 9, 2003

Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent.
George W. Bush
State of the Union Address
January 28, 2003

We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more.
Colin Powell
Remarks to UN Security Council
February 5, 2003

We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have.
George W. Bush
Radio Address
February 8, 2003

So has the strategic decision been made to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction by the leadership in Baghdad? . . . I think our judgment has to be clearly not.
Colin Powell
Remarks to UN Security Council
March 7, 2003

Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.
George W. Bush
Address to the Nation
March 17, 2003

Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly . . . all this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes.
Ari Fleisher
Press Briefing
March 21, 2003

There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. And . . . as this operation continues, those weapons will be identified, found, along with the people who have produced them and who guard them.
Gen. Tommy Franks
Press Conference
March 22, 2003

I have no doubt we're going to find big stores of weapons of mass destruction.
Defense Policy Board member Kenneth Adelman
Washington Post, p. A27
March 23, 2003

One of our top objectives is to find and destroy the WMD. There are a number of sites.
Pentagon Spokeswoman Victoria Clark
Press Briefing
March 22, 2003

We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.
Donald Rumsfeld
ABC Interview
March 30, 2003

Obviously the administration intends to publicize all the weapons of mass destruction U.S. forces find -- and there will be plenty.
Neocon scholar Robert Kagan
Washington Post op-ed
April 9, 2003

I think you have always heard, and you continue to hear from officials, a measure of high confidence that, indeed, the weapons of mass destruction will be found.
Ari Fleischer
Press Briefing
April 10, 2003

We are learning more as we interrogate or have discussions with Iraqi scientists and people within the Iraqi structure, that perhaps he destroyed some, perhaps he dispersed some. And so we will find them.
George W. Bush
NBC Interview
April 24, 2003

There are people who in large measure have information that we need . . . so that we can track down the weapons of mass destruction in that country.
Donald Rumsfeld
Press Briefing
April 25, 2003

We'll find them. It'll be a matter of time to do so.
George W. Bush
Remarks to Reporters
May 3, 2003

I'm absolutely sure that there are weapons of mass destruction there and the evidence will be forthcoming. We're just getting it just now.
Colin Powell
Remarks to Reporters
May 4, 2003

We never believed that we'd just tumble over weapons of mass destruction in that country.
Donald Rumsfeld
Fox News Interview
May 4, 2003

I'm not surprised if we begin to uncover the weapons program of Saddam Hussein -- because he had a weapons program.
George W. Bush
Remarks to Reporters
May 6, 2003

U.S. officials never expected that "we were going to open garages and find" weapons of mass destruction.
Condoleeza Rice
Reuters Interview
May 12, 2003

I just don't know whether it was all destroyed years ago -- I mean, there's no question that there were chemical weapons years ago -- whether they were destroyed right before the war, (or) whether they're still hidden.
Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, Commander 101st Airborne
Press Briefing
May 13, 2003

Before the war, there's no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical. I expected them to be found. I still expect them to be found.
Gen. Michael Hagee, Commandant of the Marine Corps
Interview with Reporters
May 21, 2003

Given time, given the number of prisoners now that we're interrogating, I'm confident that we're going to find weapons of mass destruction.
Gen. Richard Myers, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff
NBC Today Show interview
May 26, 2003

They may have had time to destroy them, and I don't know the answer.
Donald Rumsfeld
Remarks to Council on Foreign Relations
May 27, 2003

For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction (as justification for invading Iraq) because it was the one reason everyone could agree on.
Paul Wolfowitz
Vanity Fair interview
May 28, 2003



This brilliant piece of work is from here.
posted by Irdial , 3:50 AM Þ 
Thursday, May 29, 2003

blohole:
BLEEEEUUUUCHHHHHH!!!! This has gotta be the worst thing I EVER saw! Even
then I only just made it thru the violent spewin scenes!!! Watched completely
thru spaces btwn my fingers cudn't bear to watch anymore!!

assman:
Thats too bad she is kind of cute...but I don't know if I could get past
her strange eating habits!

spade:
its not delivery, its DiGourno! (spelling??)

KnowItAll:
She did not eat it. They cut the scene and had her eat other stuff.

Canadian Dee Dee:
Why don't I listen to the warnings?

DANGER:
I CAN`T EVEN IMAGINE...REFUSE TO DOWNLOAD

Kirahonnou:
Ehh, its not so bad. I watched it all the way through. I guess I just have
built up a tolerance to 'vomit-inducing' stuff. :o

until_lisa_sleeps:
talk about having heartburn after pizza

Englishbloke:
I have to say that is totally disgusting.....how can you do that to yourself..one
has to questions the mental state of her how can you not use a knife and fork......

Buffalo:
Oh jeez - just when you think you've seen it all - this comes around!

MissBiatch:
What a fucking gross, sleezy, mentally disturbed bitch! That is some sick
fucked up stuff.

stoner420:
where do you come up with this stuff BoBo?

BoBo:
try the new bolmia and cheese pizza

phishinphreak:
EVERYONE POOPS! most of us just choose to do it in a different location!

farber:
.....and that's her idea of fun?

dirtykennedy:
I here I thought it was just the orientals that did that sick fucked up stuff
......

sassybutclassy:
oh my fuckin....ewwwwwwwwwwww thats a nasty ass bitch

Medusa:
Yum, a pukaroni and mushpoop pizza! (excuse me while I go barf!)

Caffeine_Addict:
DIRTY FUCKING SKANK ASS WHORE. That bitch is nasty as fuck especially considering
that she can blow ass bigger than some guys I know. Hehe.

imachick:
lol im not even going to start to download it.... i almopst started gagging
at the thoguth of what yall are talkign about. what a sicko!

fuzzy:
I've been wondering, when does she pee on the pizza?? All I see is when she
pukes and poos on it.

Chrissy:
That was SOOOO gross. What would a person do that for???? I hope she got
a bacterial infection .

figadish:
You guys must have a pretty weak stomach. It takes a lot to gross me out.
Don't get me wrong, that's a fucking skanky whore, but the clip was nothing
to the point of making me want to puke. I have to admit though, I've gotta
take a shit now. hahaha

Me1:
Taste testing the new Domino's all dressed pizza!!

Motorhead:
I think I am going to puke also.

Dragon:
JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!! this is the most nastyest thing I have ever seen....
Holy shit! .. I almost didn't make through the damn video clip, this was so
gross

Lorilla:
She must be part Japanese. I'm sorry.

Dead_Man_Walking:
hahahaha hahahahah ahahahahah ahahahaha ---- this is the best round of comments
ive ever read --- hahaha hahaha hahaha ..... and only 1 person implied they
would fuck her and that was "pope"----way to go, i know i can always count
on you to be a true skank lover)

RYan:
what kind of sick mother fucker gets off to this? how is that sexual in the
least? and how much money does it take to get a crackwhore to do that?

britneyblewme:
THIS IS WHY YOU DON'T KISS PEOPLE IN THE MOUTH

fuzzy:
I made it!! I almost cried like a baby, but I made it through the whole thing.

fuzzy:
How many people actually got through the whole thing??

neoShinigami:
JESUS H. CHRIST

WildChild:
30 sec and I gave up.

joephatmamma:
i almost threw up juss watching that shit

I_B_High:
There are asylums for people like this..god..what kind of nut is she??

Trimph:
no comment

boobookittyfuck:
oh fuck i couldnt get past the puking..i was starting to gag ..NASTY.. what
the FUCK????

the pope:
Wow that hot bitch can really fart

Just_Me:
What a great diet plan... just watch this every day! ... and try to eat!

Prophet_Glenn:
This bitch is a SKANK.....But smartass would still do her and kiss her afterwards.

Witchy_Bitch:
let's tasted it for ourselves!!

pissed off:
Hate to see what she would put in her salad

Battygirl:
As soon as she started to shit, I felt myself gagging... I couldn't even
finish it.

fuzzy:
Damn, I couldn't get past the puking. Fucking disgusting, you bitch.

GADiva:
OMFG!!! Where the hell was this bitch raised? Fuckin nasty!!!

scrutinizer:
I'll never order another pizza with the "works" again, and the scarey part
is, she looks just like the chick that works at Dominos

smartass:
whatever works for em

bloodpuppet:
Those crazy crackwhores will do anything for their next fix...

britneyblewme:
It takes a lot to freak me out and guess what? It didn't...I watched to whole
2:14sec of it and laughed. Put some more shit like this up.

Blaster:
Some people will do anything for attention! LOSER!

ClouD:
I couldn't watch that whole thing, and it takes alot to disguist me.

Caffeine_Addict:
I saw only a few seconds of this clip, then I deleted it. Too gross for me.
WHY WOULD ANYONE DO THAT?!?!?!?!?!

Zippo:
Aaargh, she doesn't even wince as she eats the last lot.

Xes Lana:
Why....

Thacker:
Sad thing is she wasn't THAT bad looking... I guess I need to be screening
the bitches I date from now on? Don't want none of that shit in their past.
*shrugs*

skunky:
that's fuckin mingin!

Inflicted:
Well there went my plans to have a nice breakfast. =\

Old Fart:
The reason it should be legal to shoot some people!

Nesha:
This bitch should be shot so she can never make another video like this.
Is there actually anyone who honestly gets turned on by this???

Thacker:
Excited to be first... just not excited that it had to be on this post. Holy
fucking shit.
posted by Irdial , 9:19 PM Þ 

30.17751% - Total Geek on the geek test, "Neo" on the Matrix test. How geeky! The dodecahedral rubik's is... beautiful.
posted by Barrie , 5:58 PM Þ 

20.31588% - Geek
posted by captain davros , 5:58 PM Þ 
posted by Irdial , 5:47 PM Þ 

11.63708%
posted by meau meau , 5:41 PM Þ 
posted by Irdial , 4:54 PM Þ 

posted by Irdial , 4:19 PM Þ 

You are Trinity-
You are Trinity, from "The Matrix."
Strong, beautiful- you epitomize the ultimate
heroine.


What Matrix Persona Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
posted by meau meau , 4:10 PM Þ 

"For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on," Wolfowitz was quoted as saying in Vanity Fair magazine's July issue.[...]

Reuters

So they now admit that the war was fradulent. They are war criminals, all.

But you know this.
posted by Irdial , 3:38 PM Þ 

the father of a friend of mine was fortunate enough to see, erm, UFO in concert in the 80's, and said the sinks in the toilets were full of sick, and that his ears bled.

That comes across as a bit one-uppy, but it wasn't meant to be. However, if it had been meant-to-be, it could start a major thread for all sorts of things - what did a father of a friend of yours do?
posted by captain davros , 1:57 PM Þ 

You are Neo
You are Neo, from "The Matrix." You
display a perfect fusion of heroism and
compassion.


What Matrix Persona Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
posted by Irdial , 1:50 PM Þ 

ledzep

the father of a friend of mine was fortunate enough to see them for real at madison square gardens on the IV tour ... the enourmous volume of sound made people in the front rows physically sick
posted by a hymn in g to nann , 12:16 PM Þ 
posted by captain davros , 11:55 AM Þ 

At the weekend I too saw the Led Zep DVD at a late night showing at the cinema - interesting...did anyone else notice the telephone on top of the keyboard during "Kashmir"? What on earth was that for?

You can imagine the conversation "Sorry love, speak up a bit, I'm working right now...)
posted by captain davros , 11:42 AM Þ 

"Human beings are f*cking stupid, and all the time the same mistakes and no respect. "

-Peter Brotzmann

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=333
posted by Mess Noone , 9:46 AM Þ 
Wednesday, May 28, 2003

posted by mary13 , 7:05 PM Þ 

OK, we are now waiting on the webdav bugs to get ironed out, then you will be able to comment on the file simply by browsing to it.

To do this you do this:

In Acrobat, go 
edit>preferences>general>

selecet "online comments" and then, use the dropdown to select "WebDav".

In the slot, put:
http://home.r107.co.uk/eu/

and dont forget the trailing slash.

You will then be able to make comments directly into the browser instance of the "constitution" and upload/download comments.
posted by Irdial , 6:30 PM Þ 

...beating him like a red headed step child.
posted by Irdial , 4:22 PM Þ 

Interesting article from Wired about DRM.

http://www.wired.com/
posted by alex_tea , 3:54 PM Þ 
posted by Mess Noone , 3:15 PM Þ 

New phrase for getting angry/hysterical: "Getting Aerated"
posted by Irdial , 2:10 PM Þ 

posted by meau meau , 1:40 PM Þ 

I was invited, last night, to a performance in Selfridges Oxford Street, where two pain fanatics "swam" in a "pool" of broken glass, ignited fire crackers on each other, were lowered by flesh piercing hooks from the Selfridges atrium, and some other stuff, all to the sound of an amplified hurdy gurdy.



Many years ago, famous tatoo and piercing artist Mr. Sebastian and some of his mates were aressted for performing S&M acts in private. Now, in 2003, you can see pain lovers in action, in a department store in central London, and get free drinks.



More here.
posted by Irdial , 1:05 PM Þ 
posted by Irdial , 12:40 PM Þ 

"Lotta people talking about this commencement speech given at Rockford College by New York Times reporter Chris Hedges. Listen to it, because it says a lot. The people booing? The people protesting, honking air horns, and charging the stage? They are fools. What Hedges said needs to be said. The agonized sounds that you can hear emanating from the crowd towards the end are the sounds of people being deprived of their favorite drug: delusion."
From Deep Fried
posted by Barrie , 8:05 AM Þ 
Tuesday, May 27, 2003
posted by captain davros , 8:10 PM Þ 

Everyone that downloaded the EU "Constituion" draft acrobat file, please email them to me. I will merge them into one file.

alex_t has kindly, brilliantly and incredibly fastly set up a webdav folder so that everyone can comment on the Constitiution from any browser anywhere:

http://home.r107.co.uk/eu/eviscerated.pdf

is where it will live when it goes live. I will put the file there in 24 hours, so all of your commented files must be in to me by 5pm GMT so that the completed, aggregated file can go live. Then, tell everybody. The resulting commented file will be sent to Valeri Gis. Dest.
posted by Irdial , 7:09 PM Þ 
posted by Barrie , 6:33 PM Þ 

If it were the case that an idea for a film could be copyrighted, then any drama involving an axe murderer for example would encounter problems.

ergo, I can make a film about people trapped inside a computer simulation of life that incorporates bits and bobs from various religions and belief structures? Excellent!

:)

I always thought ideas were copyrightable, hence patents etc. An inventor just needs to come up with an idea and enough background on this idea and it's outcomes to gain a patent, he doesn't necessarily have to make this invention (and therefore realise the idea, transforming it into an object) to gain a patent / copyright. I think maybe patent != copyright though.

Anyway. I have been reading these Matrix Essays which Mr Irdial~Discs posted about earlier. I have been thinking about Matrix as Operating System vs Matrix as Object-Orientated Space and have drafted some stuff. It's more questions than answers, I don't understand enough about OOP or OSs to comprehend everything.

I just think that sometimes the characters (well writers) get confused about what is what. For example the Oracle implies that there is a singular program which looks after all the trees. This to me seems silly, surely every tree would be an instance of the tree program.

[root]# tree --Species oak

Or something.
posted by alex_tea , 5:53 PM Þ 

Your answer is in here:

BERNE CONVENTION FOR THE PROTECTION OF
LITERARY AND ARTISTIC WORKS (Paris Text 1971)

The countries of the Union, being equally animated by the desire to protect, in as effective and uniform a manner as possible, the rights of authors in their literary and artistic works, Recognizing the importance of the work of the Revision Conference held at Stockholm in 1967, Have resolved to revise the Act adopted by the Stockholm Conference, while maintaining without change Articles 1 to 20 and 22 to 26 of that Act.

Consequently, the undersigned Plenipotentiaries, having presented their full powers, recognized as in good and due form, have agreed as follows:

law.cornell.edu

And here for a USA only perspective.

IMHO if they got a hold of a script for the original film, and copied it, they would be infringing, but if they simply did a "me too" version of the film, taking the idea, then there is no infringement.

If it were the case that an idea for a film could be copyrighted, then any drama involving an axe murderer for example would encounter problems.
posted by Irdial , 4:46 PM Þ 

Starless and Bible Black
posted by captain davros , 4:43 PM Þ 

Wow, the first time I saw the Honda Ad I immediately thought of "The Way Things Go" - they are really similar.
posted by captain davros , 4:43 PM Þ 

More on what the EU "Constitution" needs:

"Less Language, More Meaning"
posted by Irdial , 4:39 PM Þ 

Acclaimed Honda ad in copycat row

"As far as I know there's no such thing as copyright of an idea," said a spokesman.

Interesting... Isn't that what IP is? Aren't patents copyrights for ideas? When does an idea become an object which is copyrightable?
posted by alex_tea , 4:04 PM Þ 

My fault: download it again and there is a document convention note in the upper left hand corner! RED means out, and there is a comment, YELLOW means in, and provisionally OK, SRIKEOUT means cut out, anythinng left uncommented before the last annotation means looks superficially OK.

Feel free to comment and drop notes in....hmmm i wonder if you can merge pdfs/notes...have to check the docs.
posted by Irdial , 3:29 PM Þ 

Ive just read and annotated

what's the difference between yellow and red?
posted by meau meau , 3:10 PM Þ 

Fellow Europeans,

Our Convention is currently engaged in defining what the European Union is to become.

It is reasonable to expect as many of you as possible to be kept informed of the European Convention's approach to this issue, how its ideas are developing and finally, in a few months' time, what proposals it has to make.

To achieve this aim and ensure that all Europeans understand what is at stake, we all have a part to play in sharing responsibility for the spread of information.

This is why we would call upon all of you, whether citizens, associations, organisations or institutions with a website to link up to the European Convention's site at

http://european-convention.eu.int.

Thank you for being our relay!

Ive just read and annotated 40 pages of the draft constitution. Its a horrifying, mind numbing MESS.

Its here with comments see above

Frankly, this is not a constitution, but a legal contract between the states, with some vague principles scattered around in it. Little is said about avenues of redress, responsibilities of the EU bodies, but LOTS about the many different redundant beaurocracies that are to be enshrined, and how they are going to be undemocratically organized.

This is for sure, the superstate blueprint.
posted by Irdial , 2:33 PM Þ 

alex, mr manning has been on holiday ........ just got back from a couple of weeks in the spanish side of the pyrenees, trying hard to adjust to sitting in front of a screen instead of wandering around mountains in 26 degrees
posted by a hymn in g to nann , 12:48 PM Þ 

Audacity. Its audacious!
posted by Irdial , 11:36 AM Þ 
posted by Irdial , 11:26 AM Þ 

MLdonkey is a multi-platform multi-networks peer-to-peer client. Originally, it was the first open-source client to access the eDonkey network . The protocol was reverse-engeneered using an efficient protocol sniffer, Pandora .

Currently, with eDonkey , it supports several large networks, such as Overnet ,

Bittorrent ,
Gnutella (Bearshare, Limewire,etc),
Gnutella2 (Shareaza),
Fasttrack (Kazaa, Imesh, Grobster),
Soulseek (beta),

Direct-Connect (alpha), and
Opennap (alpha).

Networks can be enabled/disabled, searches are performed in parallel on all enabled networks, but each file is only downloaded from one network (wait for next release !), but from multiple clients concurrently.

MLdonkey runs as a daemon on the computer. It can be controlled using several interfaces: the simplest one is telnet (telnet 127.0.0.1 4000), a more interesting one is a WEB server (http://127.0.0.1:4080/), and a binary protocol allows access using more elaborate Graphical Interfaces (see the GUIs available on your system at the bottom of the page). MLdonkey comes by default with a GTK interface. All these interfaces can be used
locally, or remotely (after disabling security restrictions).

MLdonkey is written in Objective-Caml , a powerful language that runs on most Operating Systems.

http://www.nongnu.org/mldonkey/

http://mldonkey.org/
posted by Irdial , 11:23 AM Þ 

Floppy the Robot

I just know I'm going to get halfway through doing this one and then move onto something else...
posted by captain davros , 11:21 AM Þ 



posted by Irdial , 11:13 AM Þ 

US plans death camp

26May03

THE US has floated plans to turn Guantanamo Bay into a death camp, with its own death row and execution chamber.

Prisoners would be tried, convicted and executed without leaving its boundaries, without a jury and without right of appeal, The Mail on Sunday newspaper reported yesterday.

The plans were revealed by Major-General Geoffrey Miller, who is in charge of 680 suspects from 43 countries, including two Australians.

The suspects have been held at Camp Delta on Cuba without charge for 18 months.

General Miller said building a death row was one plan. Another was to have a permanent jail, with possibly an execution chamber.

The Mail on Sunday reported the move is seen as logical by the US, which has been attacked worldwide for breaching the Geneva Convention on prisoners of war since it established the camp at a naval base to hold alleged terrorists from Afghanistan.

But it has horrified human rights groups and lawyers representing detainees.

They see it as the clearest indication America has no intention of falling in line with internationally recognised justice.

The US has already said detainees would be tried by tribunals, without juries or appeals to a higher court. Detainees will be allowed only US lawyers.

British activist Stephen Jakobi, of Fair Trials Abroad, said: "The US is kicking and screaming against any pressure to conform with British or any other kind of international justice."

American law professor Jonathan Turley, who has led US civil rights group protests against the military tribunals planned to hear cases at Guantanamo Bay, said: "It is not surprising the authorities are building a death row because they have said they plan to try capital cases before these tribunals.

"This camp was created to execute people. The administration has no interest in long-term prison sentences for people it regards as hard-core terrorists."

Britain admitted it had been kept in the dark about the plans.

A Downing St spokesman said: "The US Government is well aware of the British Government's position on the death penalty."

News .com.AU
posted by Irdial , 11:07 AM Þ 

THE FICTIONAL WAR ON TERRORISM

Fri May 23, 4:01 PM ET

By Ted Rall

How Bush's Smoke and Mirrors Endanger America

Ted Rall

NEW YORK--We've killed thousands of Muslims and taken over two of their countries. We're spending billions of dollars to make it easier for our government to spy on us. But we haven't caught Osama, Al Qaeda is doing better than ever and airport security is still a sick joke. So when are Americans going to demand a real war on terrorism?

Recent suicide bombings in Riyadh and Casablanca proved with bloody eloquence that Al Qaeda and similar extremist groups are anything but "on the run," as George W. Bush puts it. Bush's tactics are a 100 percent failure, yet his band of clueless Christian soldiers continues to go after mosquitoes with shotguns. "So far," Bush furiously spun after the latest round of attacks, "nearly one-half of Al Qaeda's senior operatives have been captured or killed," promising to "remain on the hunt until they are all brought to justice."

Can Bush really be this stupid? All underground organizations, including Al Qaeda, employ a loose hierarchical structure. No individual member is indispensable, so the capture of even a high-ranking official cannot compromise the group. Each lost member is instantly replaced by the next man down in his cell. It doesn't matter whether we catch half, three-quarters or all of Al Qaeda's leadership--hunting down individual terrorists is an expensive and pointless game of whack-a-mole. Only Allah knows how many eager recruits have sprung up, hydra-like, to fill Khalid Sheikh Mohammad's flip-flops.

Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bob Graham caught heat for calling the war on Iraq (news - web sites) "a distraction" from the war on terrorism, but he was far too kind. The invasions of Afghanistan (news - web sites) and Iraq have replaced a real war on terrorism, and they've vastly increased the likelihood of future September 11's. Bombing Afghanistan scattered bin Laden, his lieutenants and their foot soldiers everywhere from Chechnya (news - web sites) to Sudan to China's Xinjiang province; fleeing Talibs spread new anti-American seed cells while the Taliban and other radical groups retain their pre-9/11 Pakistani headquarters. With radical Shiite clerics like the Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer al-Hakim poised to fill the post-Saddam power vacuum, Iraq could become a Shia version of Taliban-era Afghanistan: an anarchic collection of fiefdoms run by extremist warlords happy to host training camps for terrorist organizations.

Yahoo News
posted by Irdial , 10:42 AM Þ 

I thought you might have interest in the forthcoming launch of a new website, DigiCirc (www.digicirc.com), which will enable music artists worldwide to finance their own releases or concerts rights, and gain full independence from major record companies.

This new and innovative music service will launch next week in order to help independent and rising stars in the music industry to raise money to put out their own releases (by trading a percentage of their future royalties) or organise their concert events.

http://www.digicirc.com/
posted by Irdial , 10:39 AM Þ 

Just saw an advertisement for this that used "Underture" from the Who's "Tommy" as a soundtrack. So very, very wrong.

by increasing the probability of the US doing what its leaders want in the future, despite what the rest of the 'free world' think because, as we see, 'they will come around in the end'.
This is the reason why everyone hates the US: they treat the rest of the world as their retarded, "unenlightened" little brother. Rather than benevolence they show arrogance.
posted by Barrie , 8:08 AM Þ 
Monday, May 26, 2003

an opinion postponed from yesterday:

Saturrday's Guardian - Tariq Ali called the UN recognition of the US/UK occupation of Iraq a capitulation - which is true, yet again pandering to the US leadership's bully tactics so that we have 'political unity' is seen as a success no matter that it continues to undermine the usefulness of the [UN] by increasing the probability of the US doing what its leaders want in the future, despite what the rest of the 'free world' think because, as we see, 'they will come around in the end'.
posted by meau meau , 9:07 PM Þ 

http://www.opec.org/NewsInfo/Speeches/sp2002/spAraqueSpainApr14.htm
posted by Irdial , 9:13 AM Þ 

[...]This process is analogous to Herbert Marcuse's notion of one-dimensionality. The multi-perspectival negating potential of art becomes collapsed into one-dimensional thinking promoted by dominant ideology. The potential for resistance is itself negated through a world of hyperreality, leaving the one-dimensional models to replace polyvalent "reality." Popular music provides a good example. The categories and forms of music are forced onto the musicians by music corporation's categorical conventions. They do change their categories to follow the times but the ultimate end is still restriction/conventionality. What begins as projecting a liberating function at the level of individual expression, gets turned into a repressive category.

The actual musicians are turned into simulations on MTV which essentially snuff out their potential resistance to the dominant categories. They no longer have a specific historical context through which they arose. They are merely images on a screen, models to follow for other musicians if they want to get on MTV. The simulations, video images of the musicians and audio "images of the music, no longer refer to a situation which brought on individual resistance/expression. For example- putting gangsta-rap music on the screen completely takes it out of its historical and social context. In this context, the art was created as an expression of resistance to the feeling of domination in urban life. When white suburban kids see the videos, they have no understanding of the actual situational context- the videos are just images on the screen like all the others images on the screen that they see everyday. This takes away the "reality" of the historical context, and replaces it with hyperreality. By removing the context, MTV removes all resistant meaning. Pop music becomes a place of one-dimensionality. In the world of hyperreality, the lines between dominance and resistance, between high and low are collapsing. There is finally no distinction. There is a unification of opposition. Pop music becomes reified.[...]

The reason why...
posted by Irdial , 12:26 AM Þ 
Sunday, May 25, 2003



The oceans of the world turned to blood. How appropriate.
posted by Irdial , 7:07 PM Þ 
posted by Claus Eggers , 4:02 PM Þ 

posted by Irdial , 2:45 PM Þ 

shttp://www.larouchepub.com/other/2001/2839operation_northwds.html
posted by Irdial , 2:25 PM Þ 

Saddam’s Weapons of Mass Destruction: US Credibility at Stake

Melvin A. Goodman, The Baltimore Sun

WASHINGTON, 25 May 2003 — It now appears that the so-called “clear and present danger’’ of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, or WMD, did not exist and that French and German critics were correctly skeptical of the US argument for the use of force.

The US task force directing the search for Iraq’s WMD likely will return home next month without discovering chemical, biological or nuclear materials. This failure could do great harm to the credibility of the Bush administration and the integrity of the US intelligence community.

Many reasons have been offered for the failure of US weapons experts and scientists to find a trace of nonconventional weapons in Iraq. Israeli intelligence sources claimed these weapons had been moved to Syria before the war began, but US intelligence agencies never believed it.

US sources claimed that the Iraqis destroyed vast stocks of WMD before the war, but sophisticated collection technology would have discovered traces of such activity and US inspectors would have located the detritus of a massive destruction effort. It’s possible that the Iraqis could have hidden or deeply buried sensitive materials, but even the leaders of WMD hunters from Task Force 75 and a special operations group from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency don’t believe such a theory.

As a result, these teams are now searching for evidence of Saddam Hussein’s crimes against humanity, Iraqi covert actions abroad and even the theft of Jewish antiquities from Iraqi museums — a far cry from the artifacts of WMD.

If the claims of President Bush, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and CIA Director George J. Tenet to justify the war were vastly exaggerated or simply false, there will be significant consequences.

For one, the distortion of evidence of Iraqi WMD will make it harder to gain international cooperation in the war against terrorism and the campaign to prevent the spread of WMD.

These efforts require international assistance. Information from foreign intelligence services has been required in the arrest or capture of all suspected Al-Qaeda terrorists thus far. Any success in stopping the strategic weapons programs of Iran and North Korea, both more advanced than those of prewar Iraq, will require international help. [...]

Arab News

— Melvin A. Goodman is senior fellow at the Center for International Policy in Washington and former senior analyst at the CIA.
posted by Irdial , 12:03 PM Þ 

Debunking conspiracy theorists' paranoid fantasies about Sept. 11

Copyright Gerard Holmgren. Jan 2003.

Astute observers of history are aware that for every notable event there will usually be at least one, often several wild conspiracy theories which spring up around it. "The CIA killed Hendrix" " The Pope had John Lennon murdered ", "Hitler was half Werewolf", "Space aliens replaced Nixon with a clone" etc,etc. The bigger the event, the more ridiculous and more numerous are the fanciful rantings which circulate in relation to it.

So its hardly surprising that the events of Sept 11 2001 have spawned their fair share of these ludicrous fairy tales. And as always, there is - sadly - a small but gullible percentage of the population eager to lap up these tall tales, regardless of facts or rational analysis.

One of the wilder stories circulating about Sept 11, and one that has attracted something of a cult following amongst conspiracy buffs is that it was carried out by 19 fanatical Arab hijackers, masterminded by an evil genius named Osama bin Laden, with no apparent motivation other than that they "hate our freedoms."[...]

Libertyforum

!
posted by Irdial , 11:58 AM Þ 

[...]It is a mistake to assume that all jews are supporters of the "Zionist Mafia" or Jewish Supremacy. In fact, some of the strongest condemnations of Zionism and Jewish Supremacy comes from jews themselves! There exists an enormous collection of hard-hitting anti-Zionist writings compiled by such notable jewish authors, historians, and journalists as John Sack, Alfred Lilienthal, Noam Chomsky, Israel Shahak, Benjamin Freedman, and Victor Ostrovsky just to name a few. There is even a jewish religious group called "Neturei Karta, Jews United Against Zionism.". For their brave efforts, these men have had to tolerate vicious abuse from Zionist smear groups like the Anti Defamation League (ADL) - an organization which actually specializes in defamation!. So let us put to rest now and forever the slanderous lie, and strategic Zionist propaganda ploy, that labels anyone who dares to call attention to the dangers of the Zionist Mafia is an "anti-semite", a "hatemonger", or a "skin-head".[...]

http://it.geocities.com/comedonchisciotte/wta.html

and this is the Neturei Karta website:

http://www.nkusa.org/
posted by Irdial , 11:54 AM Þ 

posted by Irdial , 10:58 AM Þ 

U.S. Eyes Pressing Uprising In Iran

Officials Cite Al Qaeda Links, Nuclear Program

By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 25, 2003; Page A01

The Bush administration, alarm-ed by intelligence suggesting that al Qaeda operatives in Iran had a role in the May 12 suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia, has suspended once-promising contacts with Iran and appears ready to embrace an aggressive policy of trying to destabilize the Iranian government, administration officials said.

Senior Bush administration officials will meet Tuesday at the White House to discuss the evolving strategy toward the Islamic republic, with Pentagon officials pressing hard for public and private actions that they believe could lead to the toppling of the government through a popular uprising, officials said.

The State Department, which had encouraged some form of engagement with the Iranians, appears inclined to accept such a policy, especially if Iran does not take any visible steps to deal with the suspected al Qaeda operatives before Tuesday, officials said. But State Department officials are concerned that the level of popular discontent there is much lower than Pentagon officials believe, leading to the possibility that U.S. efforts could ultimately discredit reformers in Iran.

In any case, the Saudi Arabia bombings have ended the tentative signs of engagement between Iran and the United States that had emerged during the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq.[...]

Wasington Post

Now completely emboldened, there is nothing (they think) to stop them.
posted by Irdial , 10:53 AM Þ 

'Enough is enough'

But there is more to this than just a sordid row over money.

Those opposed to the war have decided, quite simply, that enough is enough.

France and Russia, in particular, want to begin restoring relations with the US and rebuilding their power in the Security Council.

It is not a row that is going to be patched up that easily.

But the US Ambassador to the UN, John Negroponte, did, grudgingly, offer a small olive branch.

The US, he said, was appreciative of the "constructive spirit" in which the Council had worked on the resolution.

"We look forward to working closely with all of you to implement this important decision."

That cannot disguise the reality.

This resolution gives official blessing to a new era, an era of what the American right like to believe is the "benevolent hegemony" of the United States in Iraq, and maybe around the world.

BBC
posted by Irdial , 10:49 AM Þ 
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