Continued losses of freedoms and civil liverties.

Reason Magazine - Hit & Run > New Adventures in Asset Forfeiture

Santa Fe police will soon be able to seize the cars of motorists merely accused of drunken driving. No trial or actual conviction necessary.

Meanwhile, police in Florida are confiscating the motorcycles of operators accused of outrunning police cruisers based only on an officers memory of the bike's license plate. Again, no trial required.

You follow that, right? No due process required. You don't have to ever be found guilty of anything. Simply charged. And you lose all your stuff. God bless America. Cocksuckers, I swear to god.

Felipe Fernández-Armesto - Wikipedia

Fernández-Armesto gained media attention in 2007 for an incident on January 4th in which he was allegedly brutalized by 5 policemen led by Kevin Leonpacher in Atlanta, Georgia as a result of jaywalking (which does not exist as a legal and therefore criminal concept in his home country of the UK) while in town for a conference of the American Historical Association.



When told by 28-year-old officer Leonpacher that he was not supposed to cross where he had, he said he simply thanked him and continued on, claiming not to have known that Leonpacher was an officer because he was wearing a "bomber jacket" which covered his badge and obscured the uniform that Leonpacher claimed to have been visibly wearing. When Leonpacher ordered him to procure identification, the 56-year-old responded by questioning his authority to make such a demand and in turn, requesting to see the officer's ID.

Upon asking that Leonpacher show him his credentials, he was subsequently "knocked", "thrown" and/or "wrestled" to the ground after having his legs kicked from under him, and pinned there by the officers. Professor Lisa Kazmier, who witnessed the incident, was quoted as saying "It was like he was Osama Bin Laden or something." Leonpacher and the Atlanta Police Department deny that unnecessary or inappropriate measures were taken. After having been arrested and jailed for eight hours, Fernández-Armesto was released and charges of "disorderly conduct" against him were unofficially dropped following an appearance in traffic court the next day. Despite having once been mugged, he stated that "It was the most violence I've ever experienced in my life".

Boing Boing: London metro police poster

"This is an actual British Government poster outside a London Metro. Looks like they ripped it straight from the set of 'Brazil.'"

How very "Big Brother is Watching" of them.




Guantanamo detainee's lawyers post video to YouTube

David sez, "Now that habeas corpus has been eliminated there are no traditional means to advocate for the rights of detainees and Guantanamo. Here is a video put together by the public defenders office in Oregon, released on youtube, about their client Adel Hamad, a hospital charity worker and ping pong player who sits in Guantanamo since 2002. The lawyers traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan to tape video testimony of people who knew and worked with Mr. Hamad. But the U.S. government does not seem interested in this added material. Thus, the website for Project Hamad that has this video was put together by citizens concerned both about the disappearance of habeas corpus (and the lack of media attention this has received) and who are looking for a way on the internet and in the neighborhoods to spread the word, getting people to put Adel Hamad's face in the window of their houses, cars, local businesses, blogs, websites etc."

Adel Hamad was a teacher of elementary school orphans, a hospital worker, and someone who coordinated the delivery of food, medicine and blankets to refugees. He has been imprisoned for 5 years and classified as an enemy combatant, despite the lack of any allegations or evidence that he ever acted against the U.S. or its allies, or even had political sympathies for those who did.

'Sometimes, we just didn't get the right folks' - Brigadier General Jay Hood

Bush is being led by fake Klingons.

The geek power is strong with this one.

Reason Magazine - Hit & Run > I! Have Had! Enough! Of YOU!

David Wu (D-Oregon) - "...this president has listened to some people -- the so-called "Vulcans" in the White House. The ideologues. But you know, unlike the Vulcans of Star Trek who make their decisions based on logic and fact, these guys make it on ideology. These aren't Vulcans! There are Klingons in the White House! But unlike the real Klingons of Star Trek, these Klingons have never fought a battle of their own. Don't let faux Klingons send real Americans to war. It's wrong."

America's best-known-obscure philosopher decides he'd like to try something else.

Robert Anton Wilson [January 18, 1932 – January 11, 2007]

Rest in Peace.

Cosmic Trigger, Prometheus Rising and Quantum Psychology should be required reading for every upright mammal on this planet. We'd all be better off.



Fnord, damnit.

"Following Korzybski, I put things in probabilities, not absolutes... My only originality lies in applying this zetetic attitude outside the hardest of the hard sciences, physics, to softer sciences and then to non-sciences like politics, ideology, jury verdicts and, of course, conspiracy theory." - RAW

RAW Essence

Robert Anton Wilson Defies Medical Experts and leaves his body @4:50 AM on binary date 01/11.
All Hail Eris!

On behalf of his children and those who cared for him, deepest love and gratitude for the tremendous support and lovingness bestowed upon us.

(that's it from Bob's bedside at his fnord by the sea)

RAW Memorial February 07
date to be announced

Sandy rediscovers playing with her camera...

Very, very cool... yes?

From the folks who brought you Shaun of the Dead...

Hot Fuzz! The truth in law enforcement! Looks hilarious...

Sinfest speaks to me.

Sinfest.net

My worlds collide.

My geek worlds, but still.
Joss Whedon to direct NBC's The Office

PopWatch has not yet confirmed the delicious rumor that both Joss Whedon and J.J. Abrams will be directing episodes of The Office. I hope it's true; I'd love to see Dwight, armed with his goose-carving knife and gaydar wand, combating vampires and/or polar bears...

UPDATE: Awesome! NBC Universal has confirmed to EW's Dan Snierson that Whedon and Abrams are indeed both directing episodes of The Office. Watch for them to air around late February.

See, what we need is more parents involved in their kid's lives...

Like this!
Mothers, daughters arrested after brawl outside school - CNN.com

WOONSOCKET, Rhode Island (AP) -- Two mothers and their 13-year-old daughters were arrested after police say one woman drove her already suspended daughter to school to fight a teenage rival.
Ana Rivera, 44, and Maribel Santiago, 34, are scheduled to be arraigned Thursday on a charge of simple assault in connection with Monday's fight.
... Rivera allegedly drove her daughter to Woonsocket Middle School so she could fight Santiago's daughter.
...Authorities said a teacher tried to break up the fight and was hit by Santiago.

No compassionate segregation forever!

Or something like that...

10AM What I Meant to Say Was I'm Pro Racial Segregation

Girl: I don't know, I just hate it when they mixed the coloreds and the whites.
Random passerby: What?
Girl, loudly: What? Ohhh! I mean Christmas lights! I swear. I like houses that are all decorated the same way.
Friend: Just stop talking.
Girl: I am such a dipshit.

Overheard by: i was confused too
via Overheard in the Office, Jan 10, 2007

11AM No Bereavement Time-Outs in Office Warfare

Female coworker: Did you hear that Bobbi lost her father?

Chorus of 'Awwws' from other coworkers.

Male coworker: Why doesn't she look in her cunt? Everyone else seems to have been in there.

Ruby Tuesday's
Carle Place, New York
Overheard by: Big Larry
via Overheard in the Office, Jan 10, 2007

Heh.

Christopher Hyatt, Ph.D., Adv. M.ED.

If you prefer to let someone else do your thinking for you, make your life happen for you . . . . we suggest attending the religious establishment of your choice.

“Comic books today have generally become more violent, sexy and godless than ever.”

Outstanding.
That is why I read them, after all.

Blog@Newsarama » Comics: ‘More violent, sexy and godless than ever’

If any sentence is crying out to be made into a marketing slogan, it’s this one, from an article in Utah’s Deseret Morning News about Christian comic books: “Comic books today have generally become more violent, sexy and godless than ever.”

"Was it a dream where you're standing in sun-god robes on a pyramid with a thousand naked women screaming and throwing little pickles at you?"

"Why am I the only one who has that dream?"

Kilmer plans Genius return - Movie news - Movies - Virgin.net

Val Kilmer is reportedly set to sign up to star in a sequel to his 1985 comedy 'Real Genius'...

In the original 80s project Kilmer played Chris Knight, one of two brilliant teenagers who head a team of young geniuses developing a laser for what they believe is a class project and later discover that their professor intends to turn their work over to the government for use as a weapon.

I will absolutely watch this - I still remember seeing the first one in the theater with my older brother.

Death is far too important to take seriously.

When my day comes, I hope I do it with this much style and grace.

RAW Data: Do Not Go Gently Into That Good Night

Various medical authorities swarm in and out of here predicting I have between two days and two months to live. I think they are guessing. I remain cheerful and unimpressed. I look forward without dogmatic optimism but without dread. I love you all and I deeply implore you to keep the lasagna flying.

Please pardon my levity, I don't see how to take death seriously. It seems absurd.

(typed from his bedside at his fnord by the sea)

Possibly the most geektastic license plate ever.

KHAAAAAN!

Date: 08/31/06 Owner: Mat

Favorites this week...

(PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard.)

"The Great Afterlife Debate" - Michael Shermer and Deepak Chopra

Fascinating, if lengthy, debate on evidence for the existence of life after death. It's couched in a "science V religion" or a "science V magic" paradigm, but that's a faulty presupposition, imo. Chopra uses scientific studies as evidence as much as Shermer.

What I found revealing was how it showed how science can be as susceptible to bias as religion is. Science can become it's own religion of 'scientific materialism'.

It's all reality tunnels, and what you are, or aren't, willing to let into yours...

The essays are long, but well worth reading, at the link...

Skeptic: Reading Room: Debates: The Great Afterlife: Michael Shermer v. Deepak Chopra

The following debate between Deepak Chopra and Michael Shermer came about after the widely read and referenced debate the two had last year on the virtues and value of skepticism. Deepak has a new book out on the subject, Life After Death: The Burden of Proof and Michael has written extensively about claims of evidence for the afterlife, so the two of them thought it would be stimulating to have a debate on the topic. Michael read Deepak’s book and goes first in the debate, offering his assessment of the “proofs” presented in Deepak’s book, then Deepak responds...

"Humans and human relationships are much more complex than any media can portray (although some of us do try)."

Great essay... should be read in full at the link.
Wired News: Where I Come From

Yet I also understand where people are coming from when they're freaked out by how other people express their sexuality. I don't agree with homophobia, with narrow definitions of love, with declaring that it is OK for some people and not for others, with abstinence or with defining "right ways" and "wrong ways" to have sex. But I know if you grow up in a family that doesn't talk about sex at all, or that teaches you to be disgusted by other people's sexual choices or passes along bias, it can be a long road to realizing that your prejudices are wrong.

I still believe the internet will help us create a more tolerant society, and provide time for people to explore and bring their new understandings into the rest of their lives. It does not surprise me that we leap into virtual worlds to explore what we aren't encouraged to do elsewhere. Sex is a force that can't be held back for long.

Yeah, my Jr High kids love this movie/manga/anime series...

The article makes it sound so cool I want to join in with my students.


Boing Boing: Deathnote, cheerfully immoral Japanese comics serial

Deathnote is a long-running Japanese suspense comic about a bored demon who gives a gifted teenager control over a Death Note, a notebook that kills anyone whose name is inscribed on its pages. There are many rules governing the Death Note -- the owner has to picture the face of his victim when he writes the name -- and an imaginative Death Note owner can even specify the way that his victims die, in lavish detail.

...The pacing is very tight, with surprising twists and turns. Light is a great, cheerfully amoral killer, a teenaged megalomaniac who delights in using his prodigious smarts to test the limits of the Death Note, approaching it like a Royal Society natural philosopher devising a series of tests to determine its parameters, to the delight of his demon companion.

The total absence of any disapprobation for Light's deeds is what sets this apart from American vigilante comics. In those books, there's always someone there to wag a finger at the crimefighter, even if it's just the crimefighter's own tortured
conscience...

The Scribbler by Daniel Schaffer

Read a brilliant graphic novel called The Scribbler by Daniel Schaffer recently. It's about a girl who uses an experimental device that burns through her alters/personalities in her dissociative identity disorder [formerly known as multiple personality disorder.] Great book, and interviews with the author were fascinating.

Interview with Dan Schaffer (Dogwitch, Indigo Vertigo) - The Comics Review Forums

...Being allowed to be creative to your fullest potential is the most important thing in the world for me. Being trapped in offices, following other people’s routines and rules is, it makes my brain sweat like a caged tiger. It’s not that my body wants to get out and run around, but my mind does. Chaining my head down to solving someone else’s problems is slow death. I did that for long enough to appreciate where I am now.

Broken Frontier | The Portal for Quality Comics Coverage!

I'm an individualist, I suppose. I see a lot of interesting and imaginative people being reduced to a series of ticks and crosses in their everyday working lives by uninteresting and unimaginative people. Corporate drones with a hive mind mentality. There are probably lots of benefits to having a business running like a well-oiled machine, but the side-effect of that is the destruction of individuality. And that slowly becomes the criminalization of individuality. Individual technique isn't allowed to develop anywhere because everyone has to do the job the same way to get the right amount of ticks in the right boxes.

COMICON.com: SCHAFFER: A SCRIBBLER AT IMAGE

Modern society denies most of us the right to develop identity and original character traits in our everyday working lives because now everyone has to do the job the same way to get the right amount of ticks in the right boxes. Personality traits, identity markers, style, ability, it's all pigeon-holed and scrutinized and usually frowned upon unless it fits a pattern some guy you never met made up for you. THE SCRIBBLER came from the question, if someone invented a machine that could make us act just like everybody else, how would we react to it? The optimistic answer is that our individuality would rise to the challenge and fight back - it would tweak the machine for its own ends and use it against its creators.

...The story of THE SCRIBBLER isn’t about the mental disorders; it’s about he creation of archetypes, and the human tendency to view things in black and white. It challenges the acceptance of “good” and “evil” as accepted universal truths. If you’re going to suggest that there is no such thing as “good” and “evil” then you really have to offer up some kind of alternative. So my alternative here is psychological and neuropsychological understanding. A scope that’s at least as big as your mind, obviously, and probably as big as the universe! It’s an area where you have to take time to figure out the difference between sociopathic disorders and dysfunctional behaviour. You can’t just point and say, “That’s the bad guy!” It’s about remembering the details. One line of dialogue in the book reads, “They say madness is culturally relative” and the book tries to stay close to that observation. It denies any black and white answer to its questions and aims straight for the grey areas.

...because understanding psychology may possibly be the only sensible way forward for the human race. I’m not talking therapy or padded cells or self help groups, I’m talking about neuropsychology, angles of perception, cognitive behavioural patterns, synaptic biology. That stuff. I’m sure that’s where the truth is hiding, just under the surface. We’re so quick to point blame or demonise people, whether it’s Marilyn Manson’s fault, or Brett Easton Ellis’s, or whoever, but the real reasons are more complicated. In fact, they're insanely complicated. I’m looking for genuine understanding of human nature.

Damn Libruls!

Damn Liberals Cost Us The War!

...The hate mail, I tell him, goes something like this: Yes, we have probably lost the war, you freak hippie commie punk. But do you know why we lost? You know why the terrorists hate us even more? I'll tell you why: Because of the goddamn liberal media! Because of the liberal agenda, the one that wouldn't give Bush a chance to really unleash the dogs of war, to quash our evil Islamic enemies, to really make America into a strong and ruthless machine of brutal moral justice.

We lost the war (my hate mail sneers), in short, because of people like you (that is, me), who so obviously hate America and hate our president and won't allow our fine and manly military to take whatever actions necessary to bring terrorism down because of some stupid ethics rules and anti-torture laws and hippie-dippy Geneva Conventions and silly pagan notions about saving innocent lives and examining true causes. Goddamn you liberals!

Something was wrong. There was a decided lack of laughter and incredulity on the part of my tablemate. There was no knowing nod, no chuckle, no shake of the head at the absurdity and intellectual despair of it all. I had the distinct feeling, in fact, that nearly everything I had just said came out in Greek and I'd just hurled a whole pile of words at a large and uncomprehending sweater.

Perhaps, I think to myself, he did not understand the humor? The rich and sickening irony? I decide to reiterate: Isn't that hilarious? Isn't it amazing how, despite nearly six full years of unchecked Republican power, despite a brutal and scandal-ridden rule over both houses of Congress, despite a stunning gutting of the treasury and a war that is costing us $100,000 per second, despite a lapdog media that was terrified as a Chihuahua in a hurricane of Karl Rove's appalling disinformation machine -- a supposedly liberal media that, for more than five years, didn't dare question anything about Dubya's rush to war for fear of upsetting the wailing evangelical neocon "majority" that ruled the schoolyard with a bloody iron Bible, is it not amazing that the GOP's historic national disgrace is, of course, all the liberal's fault?

Nothing. No response. Just a narrowing of the eyes, a slight shift in the seat. And finally the words that sound like fingernails on the chalkboard of truth: "You know what bothers me?" he said. "The feeling I get that I'm never really told the truth about Iraq and all the good things that are happening there."

Wait wait wait. What?...