Posts from April 4 to May 1

May 1

My favorite Move On Ad.

Quantity isn't the only reason people prefer the Internets over traditional media. A lot of the time the quality is better as well. For Exhibit One: the often incredible writings of Agent Ska's brother, who's been traveling all over the world and he's not visiting safe places, either. He's a Year of Living Dangerously kind of guy. I might note that what he does sounds like a cover for a spy (in the movies anyway) but I'm sure he's not. (See torture scene in latest Bond movie...) Contrast and compare this piece that he wrote with, say, Ruth Ann's latest:

As much as I like Sri Lanka, I’m not going to miss this stuff - it was a cheap, guilty thrill at first (look! guys with guns! posters of dead people! boy I ain’t in Kansas anymore!!) but it fades very very quickly into dull apathy, occasionally broken by revulsion and, to be honest, sometimes even real fear - standing alone on the side of a road as stressed, heavily-armed police prepare for an oncoming motorcade, you look around and idly ponder just how many ways you could die or lose a limb in the next minute. Bomb or claymore mine in that open drain or that pile of trash or tucked into the concrete lane divider; car coming from that lightly-guarded alley ramming the motorcade as it passes by you; bodyguards panicking and firing wildly as a sniper unloads from a rooftop.

Usually just a bloody-minded mental exercise, but sometimes it escalates beyond as the time trickles on and there’s nowhere you can go; the imagination accelerates its speculations, the brain imagines how upset friends and family will be, if you get yourself killed, that you stupidly put yourself in harm’s way instead of simply going by a different route, and the pit in the stomach starts to overcome the professional’s interest in the security preparation, convoy and escort packages, etc. Myopic, cowardly, selfish, paranoid, ridiculous, melodramatic, sure, but that’s life. Then the Hummers and troop trucks and motorcycle outriders and ambulances and armored SUVs and darkened-windows limos blaze by, horns honking and lights flashing and guns pointing, and disappear into the distance. And there you are again on the other side, a bit sweatier, a little later in the day, looking for a place to reload your cell phone account and pick up some cookies.

I also fast realized that much of the intellectual interest one can take in the place is completely dependent on the fact that you have a ticket out - for actual normal people with nowhere else to go (in the broadest possible sense), checkpoints and propaganda and assassination reminders are just hell. Hopefully as I come back here again and again over the years things will improve. For my (but mostly their) sake then I’d no longer viscerally feel “there but for the grace of God go I” as I walk, eyes averted, past the jumpy 19-year soldiers visibly bracing when an unidentified car pulls up to a sensitive checkpoint, the middle-aged men missing arms, the civilians being dragged off their bus and yelled at by nervous police in Tamil neighborhoods, and the galloping convoys trying to out-run the shadowy IEDs that haunt drivers’ dreams.

Side note: Looks like Ted Rall is back in this week's City Paper. I think my one man public outcry turned it all around. Or maybe they skipped him for a week. But I'm watching you City Paper..."in brightest day, in darkest night" etc...

April 29

I got this from the Prolefeed guy. I'm pretty sure the guy with the gun is an auto insurance agent. Related and hilarious clip here. Is it just me or is the Prolefeed as good as anybody on teevee or in my newspapers? More political stencils here. We can only beat them with stencils you see.

When I asked Chris Potter what happened to Ted Rall I also noted--perhaps a bit too obtusely-- that the Pennsylvania primary results were essentially unverifiable. Perhaps it was really a 52 to 48 race like the exit polls. Perhaps Hillary won by 20 points. Who knows. And who can check. Trust politicians because they would never never ever lie to us, right Chris? Now, as it turns out, they've been having this debate in New Jersey except its happening in a courtroom. Get the background here from Bradblog. Long story short: Sequoia doesn't want you looking inside their machines, or the machines that were used all over Pennsylvania last week and Allegheny County in particular. (I could be wrong about that.) Sequoia had been fighting in court to make sure that their machines couldn't be examined. That this would be an issue in a real democracy is stunning. Then again, I suppose I don't live in a real democracy. Anyway, super hacker Ed Felton is getting a look.

Here's what he's found so far. Remember, Fast "Eddy" Rendell and our Secretary of State said everything worked fine last Tuesday. Compare and contrast with these graphs from Slashdot:

"Princeton Professor, Ed Felton, has posted a series of blog entries in which he shows the printed tapes he obtained from the NJ voting machines don't report the ballots correctly. In response to the first one, Sequoia admitted that the machines had a known software design error that did not correctly record which kind of ballots were cast (republican or democratic primary ballots) but insisted the vote totals were correct. Then, further tapes showed this explanation to be insufficient. In response, State officials insisted that the (poorly printed) tapes were misread by Felton. Again further tapes showed this not to be a sufficient explanation. However all those did not foreclose the optimistic assessment that the errors were benign — that is, the possibility that vote totals might really be correct even though the ballot totals were wrong and the origin of the errors had not been explained. Now he has found (well-printed) tapes that show what appears to be hard proof that it's the vote totals that are wrong, since two different readout methods don't agree. Sequoia has made trade-secret legal threats against those wishing to mount an independent examination of the equipment. One small hat-tip to Sequoia: at least they are reporting enough raw data in different formats that these kinds of errors can come to light — that lesson should be kept in mind when writing future requirements for voting machines."

By the way, if you're playing the home game, this would be evidence of election fraud. But remember, only dirty fucking hippies on the internets think this story matters.

There's a terrible vid battle going on between the Brazilian Girls and The Bird and the Bee. Bloody and awful. Yet there can only be one.

I understand these online comics are up for an Eisner according to Paul D. I'm going to try and check them out.

Best Digital Comic
The Abominable Charles Christopher, by Karl Kerschl, www.abominable.transmission-x.com
Billy Dogma, Immortal, by Dean Haspiel, www.deanhaspiel.com/immortal.html
The Process, by Joe Infurnari, www.theprocesscomic.com
PX! By Manny Trembley and Eric A. Anderson, www.pandaxpress.com
Sugarshock!, by Joss Whedon and Fabio Moon, http://www.myspace.com/darkhorsepres...m=1&storynum=2

My cousin Leonce Gaiter has made the Youtubes. He is out and gay so I suppose as Eddie Murphy once described Michael Jackson: "Not necessarily the most masculine brother in the world..." But he's much more masculine than Mr. Jackson anyway. He also comes off as highly intelligent and thoughtful. I got sort of a Malcolm Gladwell vibe but without the funny hair. He seems to be doing these vids to promote a book proposal. That's not promising. Perhaps he doesn't have a better agent than me. Anyway. The vids are here and here. Part two features a critique of Christianity in the black community, I think. Judge for yourself.

I see our cutting edge "alt" weekly The City Paper seems to have canned Ted Rall. If you're keeping count they have gotten rid of their funniest and most political cartoonists, Rall and that Tom the Dancing Bug guy, and kept on their least political and least funny cartoons or Red Meat and that Derf fella. I will try to provide where they have failed. Update: I'm going to ask the city editor if that's the case or if it was just last week's issue. I know Tom hasn't appeared in weeks. I'm not absolutely sure about Rall.

From Boing Boing. Also from Boing Boing contributor Cory Doctorow: He will soon be releasing his well reviewed young adult novel "Little Brother". And check out this crazy premise: apparently, in the far off future, you'll be a kid and some evil government will try to make everything that you enjoy doing over the Internet completely illegal. Ker Razy. I can't wait to read it when Cory releases the Creative Commons version of this book in several days. It feels like 1984 with a viable resistance movement. Some of us would really like to know how such a resistance movement would work. We really would. Especially if it involves not blowing up stuff.

April 28

My cousin Leonce Gaiter is blogging again. This time for the Huffington Post. He apparently has a better agent than the person who is writing this or he's a better writer perish the thought. He's back and he's pissed off about Obama.

Just a sample:

"If the Pennsylvania debate proved one thing, it's the state of the political landscape in which Democrats will compete come November. Unfortunately, we're like the third act heroes on too many TV shows: The villain has tortured, raped and maimed the hero's wife, child and pet hamster. The hero has the villain dead-to-rights. The villain sweats profusely, trembling in fear. Just then, the hero's trusty sidekick steps in to whisper to the hero, "If you do it like this, you're no better than he is."

At that point, I'm screaming, "Smoke the Bastard!! Shoot! Shoooooot!!

I am deathly tired of the Democratic "we don't want to win like that" attitude. I'm sick of being part of a party of losers with clean consciences. I want my Democratic candidates to out-lie, out-cheat and out-steal their Republican opponents. I want them to practice dog-whistle politics, send me private signals telling me that they don't really mean a word they're saying, and giving me confidence that their campaign soundbites are just lures for the mob. I want them to assume the asininity of the bulk of the mainstream television press corps (have you seen a TV news broadcast lately?) and use it as opposed to being used by it.

I know. I know. We're trying to "take back the system." We want a better press corps. I want to be 3 inches taller. That's not going to happen either.

Also related: The Supreme Court upholds voter ID ban. I found the dissents particularly interesting. Just for the record: no evidence whatsoever that Democrats have used fake voters to win elections. Massive evidence that the GOP has used every trick in the book to steal the last two presidential elections and at least one house seat. This has to be said: A lot of Democrats weren't unhappy that their party was robbed of two presidential elections. If you were upset, then you might pass a bill that would change things. Related: Dems failed to pass newest version of Holt bill. The bill required the abnormal two thirds and apparently there is no plan to add it as an attachment. That would mean you really wanted to pass a bill like that of course. Steny Hoyer, the Dems number two, doesn't want to reform the machines because things are going so well now. Kind of like when Biff got the betting results book in Back to the Future II...I always wondered what happens to the people who live in those awful splintered realities. Now I know.

And now: Time for Phil's Quixotic Musing...

I don't suppose the dems could attach something to that $100 billion dollar Iraq spending proposal that would fix our machines and outlaw modern versions of Jim Crow? Yeah, I didn't think so either.

April 23

New Spirit trailer here. More stills here. Might be decent. What's with all the cats? No I never read the Spirit growing up. Also part of the Acid Jazz Channel. Related: The Full Screen function now works at the channel.

April 21

Given the polls, Hillary Clinton probably shouldn't get more than 57 percent of the vote. Booman actually thinks that Obama could win if the black vote turns out in Philly. Even if she wins by five points that won't be enough. She really has to get to 63 percent. Here are two separate stories on how easy it is to hack the Pennsylvania vote:

From Bradblog:

On Tuesday night, you will be told who the winner of the Pennsylvania Primary is. You will accept it. You will have no choice. No matter who the winner really is. Or isn't.

This Tuesday's crucial contest will be primarily run on 100% faith-based, Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen or push-button) e-voting machines across the state. There will be no way to determine after the election whether the computers have accurately recorded, or not, the intent of those voters who voted on them. As VerifiedVoting.org summarizes the crucial contest, it "will be essentially unrecountable, unverifiable, and unauditable."

Most of the votes, more than 85%, will be cast on such DRE systems which do not provide so-called "Voter Verified Paper Audit Trails" (VVPATs), as their use has been found unconstitutional in the state, since its been determined, accurately, that ballot secrecy cannot be guaranteed when using such paper trail systems. Not that it matters.

With or without a so-called "paper trail" printer, all touch-screen/push-button/DRE voting machines are equally unverifiable and antithetical to American democracy. Period.

So, as with South Carolina's primary, so so long ago, and other states since, whatever the officials tell you at the end of the election is what you, and we, will have to accept. Whether votes are counted accurately is completely out of anyone's hands at this point. It's strictly Democracy of the Gods...

From Scoop:

It's all a magic show, a series of illusions that can be manipulated by the entertainers, also known as politicians, or anyone well placed and determined enough to manipulate a system with few if any real safeguards.

The failure to discuss real issues is an insult to all citizens. It might explain why a majority fail to vote in primary elections and why 35% to 40% consistently fail to vote in the general elections for president. A common refrain among those who refuse to participate is "Why bother, they're all a bunch of crooks." Among those who do vote, there are huge doubts about the honesty of elections. A 2006 Zogby poll of 707 likely voters in Pennsylvania asked this question: "Do you think the 2004 election was stolen?" Forty percent said yes.

The public officials who control elections behave as though the people are stupid and ignorant of the questionable practices of secret vote counting and outsourced elections. Wrong! The citizens of Pennsylvania know what the story is. Just add the 40% of likely Pennsylvania voters who thought 2004 was stolen with the 35% to 40% who routinely stay home because they doubt the system. That produces a majority of citizens who have serious doubts about a system created to serve the elected and not the electors.

The news media act like the people are a bunch of sheep who buy whatever the media put out because some people actually watch the news. They fail to note that in polls on public respect for various professions, the television news media gets a 16% approval rating. The people who booed debate anchor Gibson are a perfect reflection that attitude.

The politicians showed their respect for citizens after the 2006 election, when the message was clear. Get out of Iraq. They have their excuses. But the reality of the charade was made crystal clear in at the Philadelphia presidential primary debate. While enduring an hour when no real issues were discussed, did you hear either candidate criticize the news people for their inane questions? Not a word.

I will attempt to pull the lever for Obama. We'll see. Let's watch very carefully what happens in Philly's black wards.

April 16

Phil's Deep Thought

If you're an African American, then you shouldn't take up arms against other poor people of color. Especially in Nigeria. Or so I would like to think. Related: Fascinating profile of African arms dealer by John Robb.

I suppose this is a comic I should read. It looks kind of critical of the movement. Just to reiterate, and this is taken from an argument I made over at American Samizdat, I think this is what transhumanists actually want:

But here's the best definition of what Transhumanists want that I've seen. I don't find it all threatening. I just want to get better with science. If you don't want to evolve, then hey that's cool. Khan was just, you know, misunderstood.

Here's that transhumanist statement or prayer, written by Michael Anissimov:

I have seen a world where death and disease have been defeated by science…
where food, shelter, and clothing is manufactured quickly, and without waste…
where transparency makes violent crime impossible, and authorities accountable…
where people walk on other planets and in endless virtual worlds…
where intelligence and empathy are magnified far beyond present levels…
where the diversity of sentient beings has expanded to unimaginable proportions…
where the risk of human extinction has been reduced to near zero.

I will endeavor to take the fastest safe route to such a future, and direct my present-day energies towards its realization. I will be polite and understanding to skeptics and naysayers. I will thoroughly enjoy my daily life while simultaneously working for a better future. I will work towards that future for the good of all, not just myself, and try my best to maintain an altruistic point of view at all times.

Sounds good to me. What bothers you about that?

Prolefeed Has It Right: War is Peace. They don't even bother to hide their evil anymore do they...

April 15

A "I can quit the Internets anytime I want and I don't consider this an addiction but now I must search for a few more links and don't touch that keyboard you see because you're keeping me away from my precious precious links..." Around the Internets

What I learned at the screening of Uncounted, Part II.

One of the things that I learned at that screening is that there are proposed laws at both the federal and state levels that could solve some of our voting problems. Here's a rundown of the federal bill:

REP. RUSH HOLT INTRODUCES HR 5036
EMERGENCY BILL TO HELP
ENSURE ACCURACY, INTEGRITY OF 2008 ELECTION
Legislation Would Reimburse State and Local Jurisdictions
That Opt in for Paper Ballots and/or Audits

You can read more about it here.

You can sign an online petition here.

There were a number of political reps that were supposed to show up but only one did. That was Desiree Van Tassel from Chelsa Wagner's office. That was really cool because I knocked on doors for Chelsa during her last election. Definitely made me feel better about my work. The bill that would do some good here in Pennsylvania is called HB 53.

It's currently stuck in the State Government Committee. People in the know about state government told me that Rendell doesn't care much about the issue and that he likes the machines in Philly just fine. Of course, this brings up a much more troubling issue: if you support the candidate with the least support do you really mind if she wins through voting fraud? Here's another problem: suppose you don't trust Barack Obama on the issue of Israel and I think that's the major reason behind his endorsement of Hillary. She's the safe establishment bet. Nothing important really changes under Hillary. Would Rendell care if the machines were hacked in order to give McCain the presidency? Would Rendell care if HB 53 ever makes it out of committee? I was also told by my source at the screening that I should take a careful look at the results that come out of Philly's black districts.

The one question I asked is what state is the most likely to be the Ohio or Florida of 2008. The answer I got was Pennsylvania. I hope they're wrong about that. Then again, remember when the online registration system failed? A system that was probably registering new and excited Obama voters? Was that an accident? Troubling.

There was a somewhat jumpy yet engaging CMU computer scientist on the panel as well who terrified us all about the possibility that not only can you place your vote changing code into our black box voting machines but you can hide it in such a way that you probably wouldn't find it. Related: Computer scientists across the nation are stating to sound the warning about our hackable machines, according to Bradblog.

Most interesting rumor at the Uncounted screening: There are dueling party hackers. Well, after losing two presidential elections and at least one house seat the DNC needs new hackers. Related: Obama says the truth: Gore won the election in 2000. Four years from now we'll be able to say the truth about the 2004 election. More Related: Bitter Voters for Obama. I know I'm one.

Phil's Deep Thought, Not At All Related to Atrios' Deep Thought, which is Not At All Related to Jack Handey's Deep Thoughts

The reason why a lot of the artists you routinely see on The Acid Jazz Channel are hardly ever played by both commercial and non commercial outlets is that a lot of those artists, such as Frank Zappa and Nina Simone, even Stereolab to some extent, have political points of view that the establishment probably doesn't want you to hear or see. Zappa's atheism, Nina's strong support of the civil rights movements, Stereolab's strong anti war messages etc...I can definitely detect a pattern. Did you know that Sun Ra was a draft dodger? I, on the other hand, have just one agenda: play the best music and art I can find. Well, that, and left wing/atheist propaganda....

Two big stories on old style centralized solar power here and here. This would be much better than coal or nuclear but I still think decentralized power is the way to go. It's like somebody saying, oh in 1980, that mainframes would be the future when in fact personal computing was much better. I just think if everybody had a fuel cell or a wind turbine or cheap solar cells that would be better.

Big story on the very evil Monsanto by Bartlett and Steele, arguably two of the best investigative reporters in the United States. Related: Vendana Shiva on terminator seeds. Marginally related: Kudzu as a wonder plant.

April 13

And now: Time for an exciting new feature here at Three Rivers Online. Or:

Phil's Deep Thought, Not At All Related to Atrios' Deep Thought, which is Not At All Related to Jack Handey's Deep Thoughts

The American Peace Movement failed. It failed to stop the war and the subsequent deaths of a million innocent Iraqis. It probably won't stop a war with Iran where the death tolls--after speculated attacks on nuclear power plant facilities--would probably start at one million. The White Rose Society, full of decent courageous people, didn't beat the Nazis, either. The appropriate model now looks more like The French Resistance, if you don't mind killing people. If you do mind killing people, you might try adopting the tactics of radical environment groups and start killing property, but not just SUV sellers. You would target critical infrastructure nodes. John Robb lays it all out in his book above and his website Global Guerillas. There are examples here, here, here, HERE and here. You would have to attempt to stop the machine. I hope that Obama gets elected and that he'll change the path but the Iranian war might have started by then. There's a chance that voting simply won't be enough. If they even count your vote....

Please contrast what I've written with this latest hard hitting piece by Samantha Bennett. Then ask why people are turning away from the corporate media and turning to the Internet. Plus I have more tunes.

Doubleshot of why, for reasons that simply aren't clear to most people, Richard Dawkins is a mean ol' atheist. Here and here. Seriously, when atheists start running the compounds, I want in on the pre teen prospects who aren't allowed to leave because the outside world, with their evil laws against multiple wives and child brides, is really really bad so saith the Lord.

What Should Have Been Published April 11

Brilliant and quite disturbing read. You know you're looking at ambition when the writer creates a new language for the world. (Zenda, his face black, his eyes red.) Here's an interview with Jamie:

The world of "Narcopolis" does bear some thematic resemblance to the dystopian futures described in Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" and George Orwell's "1984," but while Delano does count both novels among his influences, the comparison ends with the superficial. "The Joos so routinely imbibed by the citizens of Narcopolis is certainly a kind of Soma," Delano said. "The language employed in the story is less a direct reference to the Newspeak of '1984' than an attempt to have fun and add value by portraying the evolution of language in both a social and political context."

The protagonist in "Narcopolis" is an everyman named Gray Neighbor. "A production line worker in a Narcopolis munitions plant, Gray's personal doubt in the state is catalyzed by a vision experienced one day at work," Delano said. "His imagination follows one of his products - a missile - to its ultimate explosive destination on the other side of the planet. Neighbor's disturbed response sounds 'anomaly alarms' in the halls of the security service."

The task of investigating Neighbor's abnormal behavior falls to T.R.U.S.T. Agent Angel Love. Neighbor's actions lead T.R.U.S.T. to suspect that the factory worker is an agent of BadEvil and a carrier of FearPure. Love's investigation proves inconclusive, "but it does lead to a sexual attraction, rapidly requited, and Neighbor's eventual recruitment as a T.R.U.S.T cop.

Here's why Barack Obama is beating Hillary Clinton. This man is a gifted politician. It's like watching Coltrane blow. Keep in mind that this takes place in a city so white that when I visited it I was officially designated as a minority of one. He still gets call and response. Whole picture here from the Daily Kos.

Got this from the email. There will be a tax protest April 15 in case you mind that your tax dollars were spent killing a million or so innocent Iraqis. Full news here from True Majority:

Tax Day is here again. As ordinary Americans play be the rules and pay their bills, our government is continuing to spend recklessly on endless war in Iraq: A war that has cost our country dearly and brought America to the brink of an economic recession. After five years, a trillion dollars, and over 4,000 American lives, we've had enough. This Tax Day it's time we change the policies of the past and invest in America's future.

Our affiliate organization, Penn Action is organizing this action on Tuesday, April 15, 2008 to tell Congress to stop spending endlessly on the Iraq War and invest in America's future.

Please RSVP right now to let me know if you can make it:
http://act.truemajorityaction.org/p/7002/event?event_KEY=34

What: Where Do Tax Dollars Go? Action
When: April 15th, 2008: 5:00-6:00 PM
Where: Mt. Lebanon/Castle Shannon Post Office, 370 Castle Shannon Blvd, Pittsburgh, PA 15238

Together we can tell Congress to Invest in America's Future, not war in Iraq!

Thanks for everything you do,

-Matt

Matt Holland
TrueMajority.org Online Director

What Should Have Been Published April 8

If you're at all interested in the election fraud debate, then please watch this Bob Fitrakis vid above. It answers the question of why doesn't the mainstream/corporate press show more of an interest in the issue. Note the shocking bit about how republican senator Mike DeWine killed the story at the papers. Why would papers care? Because they would need Mike's help in order to expand their monopolies in terms of all kinds of legislation and FCC issues. That's why your daily Post Gazette gives you hard hitting pieces like this or this. Its to distract you from the really important things that are happening, like how the American public has been robbed of its choice for president in two consecutive presidential elections. Features a nice retort to all the "election fraud" denialists like Markos and a great definition of the successful newspaper "editor". Related: This funny Smallville scene between Lex Luther and Chloe, one of Clark's Scooby friends (I'm thinking Velma.), seems fairly realistic. A force of ultimate evil has taken over most of our newsrooms, afterall. Unrealistic part of the scene: she would never get her story about "office espionage" published and if she had kids to feed she probably wouldn't have even complained.

April 4

A Short and to the Point Around the Internets

Attended last night's screening of Uncounted. I was the rude person in the back of the auditorium who insisted that it's not even stevens in terms of election fraud between republicans and democrats. As far as I can tell, the democrats have lost two presidential elections and at least one House seat due to election fraud. Furthermore, there seem to be a number of shaky results in the primaries on both sides. The last one was Hillary's must win victory in New Hampshire. On the other hand, the actions of the dems, who now control both houses, have been hard to watch. Here's a scenario: if you even thought, even had a hint, that you had lost two consecutive presidential elections due to fraud, wouldn't your first priority be cleaning up the election system? Would have to be, right? Wrong. Mark Crispin Miller has argued that he thinks the democrat party is in collusion with the republicans. I have come to the horrible conclusion that he's right. I think there are a lot of dems, especially Leiberman and his sellout ilk, who like the Iraq war precisely because it is a proxy war for Israel. And if you liked the war would you dislike the election fraud that brought you that war? Probably not. In fact, you might be counting on it in order to continue our glorious efforts in Iran. Why stop now. More on this when I have time.

From Khari's blog, who actually seems to be doing more writing now: a very good plan to bring Green jobs to the African American community. I wish they would seriously discuss bringing high paying aircar manufacturing to, say, a Philly or a Pittsburgh.