Saturday, May 28, 2005

Yes! The sun is back in Alberta, reassuring us that YES, we will have a cloudless, precipitation-free Alberta! LONG LIVE CLIMATE-CHANGE INDUCED DRAUGHT. (YES! Draught! *cracks open a Guinness*)
The Sun is shining and the sky is blue and enormous - those who have not been to the prairies will have little conception of how massive the sky is here... and when it is all blue you feel very small and exposed. (the size of the sky is much like that on the open sea)
For the fifth summer in a row I have gotten into incredible debt involving motor vehicles (getting a new car AND damaging someone else's). I believe there is some CURSE against me, involving automobiles, and I shall pray for the day when I never have to own one ever again (lets hope this day is not my death).

Alison, that keyboard makes me weak at the knees. I wonder if the Unicomp keyboard (I posted about that a while back) could be ordered with all blank keys. Hmmm!
And speaking of hip-hop, I've had a hard-on for Public Enemy lately. So good!

Also, everyone should pick up Johann Johannsson's latest on Touch, Virthulegu Forsetar. Stunning minimal "soundtrack" music, subtle yet packing a big punch. Superb!
posted by Barrie , 8:48 PM Þ 

Akin, I must just admit, I am to damn young... Sorry, I was'nt there in the 80's

Could you please give me your lifestory? :]

"There's always the sun"
YES INDEED!!! Had my first day yesterday with bare legs in a park, good book and sun sun sun sun sun sun sun sun sun sun sun. Finally!

By the way - would anybody from Blogdial be nerdy enough to use this keyboard?
posted by Alison , 10:33 AM Þ 

For those...



Paying attention!!!
posted by Irdial , 9:58 AM Þ 
Friday, May 27, 2005

The image “http://photos11.flickr.com/15944052_06ea6fa44a.jpg?v=0” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.
Newsagent window, Walmgate, York.

"There's always the sun"
posted by Alun , 8:25 PM Þ 

US wants to be able to access Britons' ID cards
By Kim Sengupta

27 May 2005

The United States wants Britain's proposed identity cards to have the same microchip and technology as the ones used on American documents.

The aim of getting the same microchip is to ensure compatability in screening terrorist suspects. But it will also mean that information contained in the British cards can be accessed across the Atlantic.

Michael Chertoff, the newly appointed US Secretary for Homeland Security, has already had talks with the Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, and the Transport Secretary, Alistair Darling, to discuss the matter.

Mr Chertoff said yesterday that it was vital to seek compatibility, holding up the example of the "video war" of 25 years ago, when VHS and Betamax were in fierce competition to win the status of industry standard for video recording systems.

"I certainly hope we have the same chip... It would be very bad if we all invested huge amounts of money in biometric systems and they didn't work with each other.Hopefully, we are not going to do VHS and Betamax with our chips. I was one of the ones who bought Betamax, and that's now in the garbage," he said. [...]

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=641731

Of course, if there is one manufacturer, thats another 60 million sheep to be sheard on a decanual basis. I presume that the manufacturer of the us system is in the usa...either way, they are gunning for the one manufacturer over all others. Imagine it; that momentum could mean that there is one company making these chips world wide for BILLIONS of sheep.

That is a wet dream beyond wet dreams, the very definition of a licence to print money.

And of course, you will already be aware that Northrop Grumman got the contract for the UK Police IDENT1 system, so there is a precedent for the usa having access to UK citizens data. YES, criminals in the uk are still UK citizens. Whats that you say? Northrop would not back door the system so that CIA would be denied access? YOU FOOL!!!!

posted by Irdial , 5:05 PM Þ 

"There's always the sun"

Indeed. I went here after work today, and it was fantastic. Salt water is so nice to swim in. Though the lengths are very long (137m) and my swimming needs practise. The pool isn't divided into lanes either, so sometimes you are faced with 15 strong swimmers heading towards you, and you must push through the current they create. Killer.



Also, Alun, I followed your link for Chris Watson to TouchRadio, and he has made an audio dairy of his trip to the Galapagos Islands. Amazing!
posted by mary13 , 5:28 AM Þ 
Thursday, May 26, 2005

Rode home from work today without my coat for the first time this year. Lovely sunshine, warm, lovely sunshine. Plus, people sitting out in the sun, enjoying it!

"There's always the sun"
posted by captain davros , 10:28 PM Þ 

WTF?!?!?

This cannot be a surprise to anyone can it?

They can't even chew bubblegum.

You know, the capabilities of the biometric net as detailed today are not the end of the feature set. As time goes on, they will add features to it at will, untill the system is unrecognisable compared to the original specification. It will be like comparing windows 1 to windows XP. It will get into every corner of your life, you will constantly be scanned and recorded, and guess what, your children will not even care that it is being done to them. Already people are willing to be fingerprinted and photographed by the USVISIT system because they need to do business or see relatives.

This is how it starts; a limited barely reasonable sounding feature set which will feature creep into a global soviet style world where everyone is enslaved. The American Militia people were right. The 'conspiracy theorists' ARE right. If you dont' believe it now, you are among the stupid.

Scramble scramble scramble...shuffle shuffle shuffle...where IS that button?!?!?!?
posted by Irdial , 6:38 PM Þ 

CNN.com - Singapore boosts security with tech - May 24, 2005

All Singaporeans will soon be scanned before leaving the country and from October, Singapore will begin issuing biometric passports chipped with holders' facial details.

...

More than half of all Singaporeans have access to the Internet, which means high exposure to hackers and cyber-criminals. To counter this, all computer activity is monitored.

...

The Singapore Government recognizes that while there may not be an actual terrorist act, it's too much of a risk to take

WTF?!?!?
posted by alex_tea , 12:53 PM Þ 

If we don't get rid of intensive animal production.... Production being the word here.
posted by Alun , 12:17 PM Þ 

Look at the way this is written, note the tenses and the passive unopinionated presentation of rotten tripe. This lapdog has his head so far up the Home Office's arse he can't see past their shit, and it's not even factually correct! It's nothing but government-approved propaganda, none of which is fact, let alone law.

This idiot should be publicly gutted like a fish as a warning to journalists everywhere...


By 2013 everyone over 16 will have to own ID card

Improved technology allows physical details to be linked to central database

Alan Travis, home affairs editor
Thursday May 26, 2005
The Guardian


The identity cards bill published yesterday will give the government the legal powers to set up the scheme and charge the fees it needs to recover the costs of enrolment, issuing and maintaining the cards and providing verification services.

ID cards are to be introduced on a staged basis. First it will become compulsory for foreign nationals to register under the scheme, then it will be voluntary for UK nationals to register when they renew their passports.[...] From here

posted by Alun , 11:02 AM Þ 

Biometrics: From Reel to Real

Exclusive from:
Thu May 19, 3:00 AM ET

Dan Tynan

Are you who you say you are? Answering that question may soon involve more than simply handing over your ID. You may also need to hand over part of your personal biology by submitting to a biometric scan.

Voice, face, and eye scanners have been a staple of Hollywood science fiction for years. Now they're rapidly becoming a part of everyday life, as the spike in identity theft and fears over terrorism have created a biometrics boom.

Today, facial recognition is used in airports to identify potential terrorists and at casinos to finger card sharks. Schools use fingerprint and hand scanners to restrict access to employees and students. Iris scanners help secure border checkpoints and nuclear power plants, while banks are starting to use voice prints to verify transactions made over the phone.

A company called Food Service Solutions sells fingerprint-scanning systems to K-12 schools around the United States. The schools mainly use the systems in cafeterias to speed kids through lines by linking them to a personal cash account that pays for their lunches. Reviews have been mixed on whether lines have gotten shorter.

Grocery stores have also begun experimenting with fingerprint scans to hurry shoppers on their way and protect debit accounts from illegal use.

But what's the potential downside? Privacy watchers say that as biometric scanners become more widespread, it becomes possible for organizations--companies, the government--to create a detailed dossier of your physical movements as you pass from one scanner to the next. If Starbucks can easily track your movements, so can Uncle Sam, or your insurance company, or your spouse's divorce attorney, and so on. [...]

Yahoo!

posted by Irdial , 2:42 AM Þ 

liverpool are european champions!
i am drunk and very happy

quelque randomity, as the good captain might say
posted by Alun , 1:05 AM Þ 

Marquee
posted by captain davros , 12:18 AM Þ 
Wednesday, May 25, 2005

I have the Quasimoto album, but I haven't listened to it properly yet. I will give it a go though...
posted by alex_tea , 5:58 PM Þ 

So I guess you dont like schizophrenic, blunt smoking rappers

I loathe them absolutely, and If I could kill them all with a press of a button, I would do so without the slightest hesitation.

That 'culture' and the bastardised music that comes from it is corrosive, destructive, counter productive, stupid, negative, bad, wrong-headed, evil, abominable, atrocious, awful, beastly, rubbishy, cheap, cheesy, crappy, cruddy, crummy, deficient, anti-intellectual, racist, dreadful, erroneous, fallacious, faulty, garbage, god-awful, gross, grungy, icky, imperfect, inadequate, incorrect, inferior, junky, lousy, poor, pathetic, rough, sad, scuzzy, sleazy, slipshod, stinking, substandard, unacceptable, unsatisfactory and total BULLSHIT.

Now of course, this is just my worthless opinion, which you can gleefully throw away as the words of a rather stupid 'seen and heard too much' geezer, BUT bear in mind that I used to live in the Tri State Area in the 80's and I was THERE when the REAL hip-hop was the most creative music being made in arguably the whole world. So potent was that original movement that it has now spread all over the world and sadly has been transformed into this debased themetune for criminals without edge, without merit, counterproductive, dysfunctional, feckless, fruitless, futile, good-for-nothing, hopeless, idle, incompetent, ineffective, ineffectual, inept, meaningless, no good, pointless, purposeless, stupid, vain, valueless, worthless trash that has stolen the imaginations of millions of idiotic tracksuit wearing nincompoops world wide.

Yes indeed. It's your round. Mine's a pint of bitter. Oh the irony!
posted by Irdial , 5:57 PM Þ 

TV they listen to.

Yes, TV is GOD, please do something ASAP - if you brits do something, maybe (or maybe not, this could depend on the US to) the danes will follow... All the things you're discussing have been in Denmark for ages...

Maybe you should make som blogdial-tv? or the irdial-channel?
posted by Alison , 5:29 PM Þ 

I had a listen to this track by 'Quasimoto' after looking at a really cool game cabinet of the same name thanks to a google search.


I have to say that this track is most unimpressive. I really don't have time for re-hashed 21 year old ideas made by 21 year olds.


Listening to this it's like Sun Ra, Davis and every other intelligent music maker never lived.

These uneducated, uninteresting, happy slapping, truanting morons need to stop wasting time, plastic and everyone's patience, get a haircut and do something real with their flesh.
posted by Irdial Discs , 1:15 PM


Ha ha ha, I wish my first language was english, I would love to give you a cool answer to that Akin :]

So I guess you dont like schizophrenic, blunt smoking rappers, that can make music out of other peoples music? By the way, the track you linked to is over 5 years old, and yes, quite unimpressive...
posted by Alison , 5:11 PM Þ 

The image “http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41182000/jpg/_41182285_k203.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

Compulsory ID. Coming to a democracy near you.
posted by Alun , 4:19 PM Þ 

It looks as though ID cards are going to be largely touted on their alleged efficacy against credit/benefit fraud using falsified identity information.

The Force is strong with you meau.

Yes indeed, they have changed their tune.

You are completely right about fraud being a PRIVATE matter between a bank and its client. In order to defeat fraud completely, all a bank needs to do is set up a tiered system of security, from which a customer can choose. If you select the highest level, your account and its funds are insured against theft. If you select the lowest end, then the loss of your money is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY. Watch as the millions of customer rush to be fingerprinted to protect their accounts from theft!

This satisfies everyone. The Shlumbergers get to make billions from ID systems, fraud is eliminated, and people who want privacy get privacy. It's all optional, it costs the state nothing and the government's latest excuse for introducing the card is solved.

It really is as simple as that. This whole proposal is as fradulent as the Iraq invasion, and everyone with a single working brain cell knows it.
posted by Irdial , 3:05 PM Þ 

It looks as though ID cards are going to be largely touted on their alleged efficacy against credit/benefit fraud using falsified identity information.

If there needs to be a system to stop fraud it should be implemented by financial service providers and the focus should be on the security of the account rather than the identity of the individual.
No identification system will preemptively expose or prevent "cardholder not present" credit card fraud.
As far as state benefits are concerned a registration system based upon decentralised information is what should be implemented, the use of a biometric should only be used to encrypt or verify the card/card holder relationship. Once you have a securely issued card you can issue or withdraw a card without affecting an individual on a wider basis as would be done in a centralised/shared database.

If the government had any RESPECT for the country it would seek to not create opportunities for increased (and real) identity theft by replicating and exposing personal information. If they limited themselves to distributing randomly generated numbers to DSS and Passport Offices there would be minimal interest in hacking into the IT system.

But of course we are being lied to in a BIG way. This is about making cheap decisions, the cheapness of not having to think or being responsible, of lowest common dominator policing, of appeasing the coporate lobbyists that wil support your post MP career, of appeasing the swine in the US government, the mentality of bought-in greed and farmed-out destruction.

And remember:

If you've "done nothing wrong" then it's none of the government's business who you are.
posted by meau meau , 2:50 PM Þ 

I've already warned Sarah that we may have to leave the country.

And go where? And how will you leave fortress UK without getting a new passport and getting registered in the process? (presuming that you leave in several years time of course, and your passport expiring.). Also, if other countries start registering you at the border, your prints, name, address and photograph will be in the system once you go through and then thats it.

No. The British have to make their stand here, and now. Everyone where they live has to do the same. There is no where to run.

And as for that BBC 'have your say' page, its another example of the low quality of some of the British public, who can sometimes be amongst the most stupid people in creation. Those who say all the things about this proposal that make your blood boil are the same morons who think that democracy is real and that demonstrating in the street is 'our democratic right'. They are the same ones that write to newspapers, complain about hosepipe bans and who sheepishly follow every regulation and rule put in front of them.

I am afraid there is little we can do about them....unless we make a TV programme dramatizing how this system will be used against them.

TV they listen to.
posted by Irdial , 2:36 PM Þ 

If only it wasn't so funny...

Do you welcome the latest plans for compulsory ID cards? Do you think the cards will help with identity fraud? Or are they an infringement of civil liberties? Send us your comments.

[...]

The only people who can object to ID cards, like photographs on bank cards, are those who have something to hide. We can all however, object to paying for one if it becomes compulsory.

I have no problem with identity cards but £85 represents my food budget for about three weeks. If this compulsory, it should be free.

I oppose the idea of the ID cards for many reasons. Firstly the cost is absurd and will be footed first by the tax payer and then we will again be asked to compulsorily pay if we want one.

[...]

So it'll be OK to get tagged when the government "drops the price" (i.e. takes the money from the... library/transport/healthcare... budget).

I've already warned Sarah that we may have to leave the country.
posted by Alun , 1:56 PM Þ 

ID cards bill includes:

Covers whole UK
Establishes national ID register
Powers to issue ID cards
Ensures checks can be made against other databases to cross check people's ID
Lists safeguards on the sort of data that can be held
New criminal offence of possessing false ID documents
Provides a power to make it compulsory in the future to register and be issued with an ID cards

It is now estimated that the cost of buying a new national ID card will be £93 per person - the previous figure was £88 but had not included VAT and other extras.


Value Added Tax! On a compulsory ID card!
Hahahahahahaha!

Note that our fabulous politicians are not now debating much about the principle of ID cards, simply about the practicalities of the ID card system. And the emphasis on the WHY has changed almost daily... today it is 'combat identity theft' rather than prevention of terrorism. Tomorrow it may well be to 'track paedophiles' or 'stop foxhunting' or 'keep the pound, and keep out the French'....

On this release, from the HO, the wording makes it blatant that you WILL be scanned to get any kind of service provision:

[...] “Our identities are incredibly valuable to us and too easily stolen. ID fraud is a growing crime which can ruin lives and underpin illegal activities from people-trafficking to credit card fraud, from abuse of our healthcare and benefits systems to terrorism. [...]

From the Home Office:

SAFEGUARDING OUR IDENTITIES: GOVERNMENT REINTRODUCES THE ID CARDS BILL

Reference: 5775 - Date: 25 May 2005 13:30

Please Note: There are currently no plans for further biometric trials.

A secure compulsory national identity cards scheme would protect people’s identities and help the UKtackle illegal immigration, organised crime and abuse of free public services, Home Office Minister Tony McNulty said today as the Identity Cards Bill was reintroduced in the House of Commons.

[...]
posted by Alun , 1:30 PM Þ 

I had a listen to this track by 'Quasimoto' after looking at a really cool game cabinet of the same name thanks to a google search.

I have to say that this track is most unimpressive. I really don't have time for re-hashed 21 year old ideas made by 21 year olds.

Listening to this it's like Sun Ra, Davis and every other intelligent music maker never lived.

These uneducated, uninteresting, happy slapping, truanting morons need to stop wasting time, plastic and everyone's patience, get a haircut and do something real with their flesh.
posted by Irdial , 1:15 PM Þ 

Now there's TWO of them!

http://www.magnetbox.com/bpi/
posted by Irdial , 12:58 PM Þ 



Any blogdialers got the Quasimoto album? And what do you think of it?
posted by Alison , 12:46 PM Þ 

  Release time: 00.01, 25th May 2005


The Crypto Wars Are Over!


The "crypto wars" are finally over - and we've won!

On 25th May 2005, Part I of the Electronic Communications Act 2000
will be torn out of the statute book and shredded, finally removing
the risk of the UK Government taking powers to regulate companies
selling encryption services.

The crypto wars started in the 1970s when the US government started
treating cryptographic algorithms and software as munitions and
interfering with university research in cryptography. In the early
1990s, the Clinton administration tried to get industry to adopt the
Clipper chip - an encryption chip for which the government had a
back-door key. When this failed, they tried to introduce key escrow -
a policy that all encryption systems should leave a spare key with a
`trusted third party' that would hand the key over to the FBI on
demand. They tried to crack down on encryption products that did not
contain key escrow. When software developer Phil Zimmermann developed
PGP, a free mass-market encryption product for emails and files, the
US government even started to prosecute him, because someone had
exported his software from the USA without government permission.

In its dying days, John Major's Conservative Government proposed
draconian controls in the UK too. Any provider of encryption services
would have to be licensed and encryption keys would have to be placed
in escrow just in case the Government wanted to read your email. New
Labour opposed crypto controls in opposition, which got them a lot of
support from the IT and civil liberties communities. They changed
their minds, though, after they came to power in May 1997 and the US
government lobbied them.

However, encryption was rapidly becoming an important technology for
commercial use of the Internet - and the new industry was deeply
opposed to any bureaucracy which prevented them from innovating and
imposed unnecessary costs. So was the banking industry, which worried
about threats to payment systems from corrupt officials. In 1998, the
Foundation for Information Policy Research was established by
cryptographers, lawyers, academics and civil liberty groups, with
industry support, and helped campaign for digital freedoms.

In the autumn of 1999, Tony Blair finally conceded that controls would
be counterproductive. But the intelligence agencies remained nervous
about his decision, and in the May 2000 Electronic Communications Act
the Home Office left in a vestigial power to create a registration
regime for encryption services. That power was subject to a five year
"sunset clause", whose clock finally runs out on 25th May 2005.

Ross Anderson, chair of the Foundation of Information Policy Research
(FIPR) and a key campaigner against government control of encryption
commented, "We told government at the time that there was no real
conflict between privacy and security. On the encryption issue, time
has proved us right. The same applies to many other issues too - so
long as lawmakers take the trouble to understand a technology before
they regulate it."

Phil Zimmermann, a FIPR Advisory Council member and the man whose role
in developing PGP was crucial to winning the crypto wars in the USA
commented, "It's nice to see the last remnant of the crypto wars
in Great Britain finally laid to rest, and I feel good about our win.
Now we must focus on the other erosions of privacy in the post-9/11
world."

Press release - Foundation for Information Policy research <www.fipr.org>


Now, let the ID Wars begin, and this time there is no way we can let them rage on for years as we loose troops to registration.

Registration is the battle ground in the ID wars. To be a soldier in this war, you must not register. You must recruit your friends and family so that they do not register. The enemy gains territory as people register; people and their data are the battleground. Right now, we have the high ground, because registration has not even begun.

In the board gaming sense we are already in the winning position. By incremental registration, we will slowly loose this war. Every individual's resistance to registration is a battleground.

You do understand this, right?
posted by Irdial , 8:25 AM Þ 

Just watched jandek on corwood. Amazing film and amazing to think he just played in the UK too.
posted by captain davros , 12:29 AM Þ 
Tuesday, May 24, 2005

The REAL ID Act: How It Violates U.S. Treaty Obligations, Insults International Law, Undermines Our Security, and Betrays Eleanor Roosevelt's Legacy
By NOAH S. LEAVITT

Monday, May. 09, 2005

Late last week, the U.S. House of Representatives quickly approved an $82 billion appropriations bill to fund America's military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. This bill is headed to the Senate in the next few days, and President Bush has indicated his strong support.

Tucked inside this massive funding package are some of the most sweeping - and, many have said, harshest - changes to immigration law in years. Representative James Sensenbrenner (R - Wis), the Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, is the primary sponsor of this legislation, which is known as the "REAL ID" Act.

The most high-profile provision of REAL ID would mandate that applicants for state drivers' licenses must prove they are in the U.S. legally, in order to get identification that may be used at federal facilities (airports, national parks, government offices, and so on.).

However, REAL ID is much broader than that. It will fundamentally reshape the U.S.'s policies governing the admittance and removal of foreigners from our country. And this change, in turn, will alter the way the rest of the world thinks about the United States.

Despite the extensive debate around REAL ID over the past several months, one vital fact has surprisingly been overlooked: Many provisions of the legislation violate treaties that are part of U.S. law. Others insult well-established international norms, including norms the U.S. itself helped develop; often, they betray Eleanor Roosevelt's great legacy.

In the end, this aspect of the Act may be its biggest flaw. It also, as I will argue, may undermine the Act's very justification - by making America less, rather than more, secure. [...]

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/leavitt/20050509.html

posted by Irdial , 6:32 PM Þ 

The company that prides itself on "Doing No Evil" isn't taking any chances with its latest executive appointment. Dan Senor, the company's new Global Communications and Strategy VP, has a CV guaranteed to have Register columnist Otto Z Stern firing a celebratory fusillade skywards from his compound in New Mexico.

A former Senior Associate at the Carlyle Group, Senor was briefly Scott McLellan's deputy as White House spokesman before becoming head of the the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq's information department [...]

Theregister

Friends in high places, and a slab in the pathway towards google being assimilated by the traditional regime?
posted by meau meau , 3:40 PM Þ 

Previous Politech message:
http://www.politechbot.com/2005/05/20/more-on-rfid/


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: percussive maintenance
Date: Fri, 20 May 2005 16:14:02 -0500
From: Jim Davidson
To: Declan McCullagh

Dear Declan,

perfectly usable for all conventional
CC purposes after the chip is treated with a hammer.

Best idea yet.

In related news, here is something on the RealIDRebellion:

"Sunni Maravillosa has created a blog to coordinate resistance
to the Real ID Act. Stop by, read the comments and links, add
your site to the list of "REAL ID Rebels."

http://realidrebellion.blogspot.com/

There's nothing about my property in a car that ought to
require me to pay some extortionist a license. And the
RealID can't steal my freedom if I burn it, or never apply
for it.

Several jurisdictions in North America are considering
offering driver "license" type documents for those who
wish to have identity papers without being "RealID'd".

Regards,

Jim
http://indomitus.net/

_______________________________________________
Politech mailing list
Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)


"the RealID can't steal my freedom if I burn it, or never apply for it."

Oh dear. If this is the quality of the thinking behind the RealID resistance then they have a BIG PROBLEM.

ID is not about carrying around a card. Repeat; ID is not about carrying around a card.

ID is about a system of controls, which include laws, regulations and software systems. When laws are passed saying that you cannot travel or (like it is in Belgium) leave your house without your ID, your freedom is very much stolen even if you don't register. If you burn the card, you can't leave your house legally; Freedom stolen. You cant open a bank account without it....Freedom stolen. Do you get the picture?

Of course, when you are fingerprinted at birth and put into the system, you will have been registered without your consent, you will carry your papers, literally, in your hands....but I digress - if you want to fight against these systems you need to understand what they really are and what they really entail.
Several jurisdictions in North America are considering offering driver "license" type documents for those who wish to have identity papers without being "RealID'd".
State delivered ID systems with unique identifiers and the associated legislation forcing you to carry them and register for them are the problem. If these states create 'ID that are not RealID'd' they will still be 'offering' systems that can be harvested and integrated into the larger federal system.

Let me spell it out for you.

The goals of the anti RealID campaign should be as follows:
  1. The permanent forbidding of ID cards in the USA
  2. Permanent removal of all legislation requiring persons to identify themselvs with state ID for any purpose.
  3. Permanent and stringent restrictions on the aggregating of personal identifiers and data by the state and any other entity.
  4. Permanent enshrining of the right to travel without documents and the right to refuse to identify yourself .
And anything else you might care to add that will permanently stop the creation of the systems of control that make up all ID proposals.
posted by Irdial , 12:37 PM Þ 

from thirstin@HN_AM

"victo fest - friday - braxton has intense press conference in hotel - after spending 20 minutes on each question where he goes way off on tri-axioms and jazz history metatheoretics. coley asks last question: "is it true you cleaned out the wolf eyes merch table at a swedish festival last year?" -- braxton leaps up and says wolf eyes are the new universe and he decided right then and there to move to stockholm and become a cook so he could be closer to this music. then he learns they are from michigan and his worldview is shifted and he realizes that there is hope for america with new angels of art existing here like wolf eyes. he claims his friends now refer to him as anthony "wolf eyes" braxton.

no shit. so wolfs and hair po show up and we hit the hotel bar hard and braxton appears after his duo gig with fred frith and connects with wolfs and nate asks braxton if he would like to smoke a joint. "I would be honored to smoke marijuana with the wolf eyes". Again, no shit. Next day braxton is at gig (3 pm) and nate asks braxton if he wants to jam w/ the wolfs and braxton says yes, just let me know when and nate says play the whole gig dude.

So after more weed blowing they hit the stage. the audience is all seated at round tables in a huge theatre called the Colisee. Hair police already decimated this crowd, they were awesome. But now we're tripping. this is too unreal. Braxton swoops in and out of the jams, at one point doing killer long sax tone duets w/ olson. Nate announces stabbed in the face. and then olson asks braxton what jam they should do next. "Black Vomit" sez Braxton. seriously, no shit. unbelievable sickness.

that night dead machines/double leopards jammed together till 1 am then back to hotel bar for extreme wind down

canada dudes, the fuck..

listened to new Greg Kelly cd on Gameboy on ride down -- incredible.

hint : you wanna cruise through canuck border w/ no problem, have flaherty at the wheel - customs agents love the guy.

yo shiflet, spencer, trevor, beatty, bernstein, miller, tovah, bassett, no neck
everyone - thanks for making this shit happen -- awesome"
posted by Mess Noone , 10:09 AM Þ 
Monday, May 23, 2005

There is going to be a Bittorrent Search engine, run by Cohen and some money guys.

Methinks they are doing this to challenge the law, because any other reason simply doesn't make sense.

update: that link was yanked 30 seconds after I posted it!
posted by Irdial , 8:51 PM Þ 

Pekka Streng is fucking ace.

posted by Mess Noone , 3:32 PM Þ 

I was listening to Meat Beat Manifesto's Satyricon last night and reading the lyrics too - This reads so much like a Blogdial post I thought, for example Original Control:

Step one measure for measure get smart come on get people talking loud and clear
Step two create some atmosphere and blow away the one way ride before we collide.
Can't you see how easy it could be to send joe public into a panic and at the drop of a hat in seconds flat you'll be asking yourself what hit me
If you want to keep up you have to stay down with the either the or the past the now the voice inside you becomes the voice of now.
Motivate take the chance backward and comming forward draw the heat in case you're ignored don't take a backseat defeat activate strike it home head over heals with the intention of expanding the original control oh!
Can't you see how easy it could be to send joe public into a panic and at the drop of a hat in seconds flat you'll be asking yourself what hit me
If you want to keep up you have to stay down with the either the or the past the now the voice inside you becomes the voice of now.
Can't you see how easy it could be to send joe public into a panic and at the drop of a hat in seconds flat you'll be asking yourself what hit me
If you want to keep up you have tyo stay down with the why the if the when the how the voice inside you becomes the voice of now.
Original control.
The voice of now.
posted by meau meau , 1:19 PM Þ 

Star Wars and the American Empire
by Scott Horton

[Spoiler warning: This article gives away important details about the new movie.]

"For a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. Before the Dark Times. Before the Empire."
Ben Kenobi

"This is how liberty dies: with thundering applause."
– Senator Padme Amidala


Many of us grew up on Star Wars, and some of us, as 10-year-olds on rainy Saturday afternoons, even spent time trying to piece together the story before the story. What were the Clone Wars? How did the Old Republic become the Empire? How could the emperor have defeated what were presumably thousands of Jedi and taken over the galaxy?

Now we know the answer: Deception. Just like in the real world.

Before the movie was even released, people began making the connection between the war on terror and Vader's declaration near the end of Revenge of the Sith, "You are either with me – or you are my enemy." Lucas, however, when asked if this was a reference to the War on Terror, said at the Cannes film festival, "When I wrote it, [the current war in] Iraq didn't exist. We were just funding Saddam Hussein, giving him weapons of mass destruction; we didn't think of him as an enemy at that point. We were going after Iran, using [Saddam] as our surrogate – just as we were doing in Vietnam. This really came out of the Vietnam era – and the parallels between what we did in Vietnam and what we're doing in Iraq now are unbelievable." [...]

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/horton.php?articleid=6041


This film has turned out to be the biggest grosser of all time. Could this be the meme vaccination that prevents the real life Sith taking over the whole world with their New World Order?! One thing is for sure, everyone 'gets it'; its an unambiguous attack spelt out in the clearest of terms.

So, no Oscar for George then!!!!!
posted by Irdial , 12:11 PM Þ 

Total volume of music on my computer
1358 songs taking up 6.96GB of space. According to iTunes this covers 215 artists, and could last me 5.4 days of continuous listening.
This is at work, I rarely use the computer for listening at home, also the 'volume' is allegedly -21.8dB because of a glitch in the sound card which sets the volume to maximum if you don't adjust the dB out level.

The last CD I bought

The Land We All Believe In by Cerberus Shoal

Song playing right now
At the moment I'm listening to the traffic outside, last song was WAR by Laibach

Five songs I listen to alot, or that mean a lot to me:


This is ridiculous but in no particular order these spring to mind as being great:

Mouse on Mars - Tamagnocchi
The Hafler Trio - Ceromancy
Coil - Circles of Mania
Roxy Music - I nominate the first half of their first album as a single glorious entity
John Duncan - Palace of Mind


Five people to whom I'm passing the baton
They'll find out.
posted by meau meau , 10:01 AM Þ 
Sunday, May 22, 2005

Ha ha very funny; someone has gamed Google so that when you search for "General Greivous" and select 'large' for the image size you get HRH Prince Charles as the first result!

"But I thought gaming google was impossible!"

"Not for the Sith."
posted by Irdial , 9:53 PM Þ 

it gave me something to do this sunday evening, having just watched 'hitchiker's guide to the galaxy'....

my musical baton
posted by Alun , 9:14 PM Þ 

Musical Baton

Magnetbox passed me the Musical Baton. Normally I don't answer stuff like this, but I am a viral addict, and the geometric explosion of a theme (or do I mean meme?) is just too tempting to not be a part of. And since it came from Magnetbox, it must therefore be cool. Strangely enough, I rushed to read the pass the baton email thinking that Magnetbox was giving up running his manly and utterly superb RIAA Radar site, which would be a disaster of sorts. I was wrong, thankfully, and look what I got instead!

Total volume of music on my computer
11,063 songs, taking up 55.67GB of an internal hard drive. This is 833 artists according to iTunes, spread over a possible 35.8 days of continuous listening. And I've pruned it down.

The last CD I bought
Bruce Gilbert's 'Ordier'. And I bought two copies.

Song playing right now
Now playing: 'Oxygene 3', by Jeanne-Michel Jarre.

Five songs I listen to a lot, or that mean a lot to me
Marin Marais
Charley Patton
Bruce Gilbert
Forqueray
Miles Davis

These are five artists that I listen to alot, snarfed from my audioscrobbler prifile. Yes, prifile. I listen to alot of music, and love alot of it. It's pointless to be pinned down to a small list - better to embrace it all and swim in it. How could I possibly pick a single Davis cut to enter into that list? I will say that I have recently been listening to 'Sugar Ray' and everything else from the 'Jack Johnson' sessions. Wow. Anyone who doesn't like Modern Miles is just a fool. Marais and Forqueray (and to a similiar extent Couperin) hit it with me so perfectly that it is almost like the music is a part of my very soul.

Bruce Gilbert is simply the greatest ever sculptor of sound.

Charley Patton..."I'm gonna buy me a Banty; put i'm in my back yawd". Priceless.

Five people to whom I'm passing the baton
I'm passing it on to people who love music and who I know run or contribute to some sort of regularly updated site, or who can pass this baton on to someone who does. That means Alex_t, Mary 13, Meau2, Alun Kirby, and Cardiffteam.

posted by Irdial , 6:17 PM Þ 

here is the newest TOTAL IMMERSION TECHNOLOGY, maybe nintendo's "revolution".... WAUW!!!!!
posted by Alison , 11:38 AM Þ 

I just saw Episode III today at lunch (with perfect seats no less). What Akin says is spot on! I notice a distinct political mirror in this movie. Much more blatant than I expected, I must say. Quite refreshing and definitely welcome.
An excellent film too. Incredibly epic in some of the most over-the-top ways you can imagine, and unabashadely melodramatic. Much, much better than the previous two painful excuses for "action-adventure" (both of which I saw last night, which were worse than I remember actually... Episode I is truly an example of excrebly excessive, gratuitous cinema). I would say it is definitely better than Episode VI too, despite the lack of Han Solo.
posted by Barrie , 12:18 AM Þ 
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