the world is what you know - NO MORE SECRETS

 
Even Celebrities Get It


Kevin Spacey, with his statements against Bush's war against Iraq and the absence of any debate about domestic (economic) issues, is the latest one in a row of Hollywood celebrities who came out to criticize the policies of the White House.

Spacey, who worked on Jimmy Carter's 1976 presidential campaign, vented his frustration about the current situation during a party to launch a Web site on Monday:

"Republicans "left the impression that if you questioned whether [an invasion] is a good idea or not, you're unpatriotic. If we did what [Bush] is talking about doing, we'd go down a road from which we would never recover and which would start a chain reaction around the world. I live in the hope that it won't happen."

Woody Harrelson voiced his opinion in an article in the Guardian aptly titled "I'm an American tired of American lies": "The warmongers who stole the White House … have hijacked a nation's grief and turned it into a perpetual war on any nonwhite country they choose to describe as terrorist."

Sean Penn wrote an open letter to President Bush in a $56,000 ad in The Washington Post, warning against attacking a sovereign nation.

Even if it's just a handful of opinion-makers (for some) who wake up to what's going on and get it across to the public there might be some good coming from this. If it's only that the common Joe begins to ask himself, "hey, my favorite actor is against Bush, why is that?"


posted by wenz at 7:28:00 PM |

 
The Face of Modern Ballot Tampering


You can't vote them out if....
You never voted them in.

Faun Otter analyzes the introduction of virtual ballot tampering: "The lack of any exit polling on November 5 has been oddly ignored by the media. Those pesky tracking polls leading up to the elections have been explained away by a ‘late surge to the Republicans’ caused by.... hmmmm, how about sun spot activity? With no exit polls, there was no other feedback to conflict with the "official" results, this allowed the Diebold touch screen machines to change the way election fraud is carried out."

Read the whole story at www.bartcop.com/110702otter.htm

Jason Kitcat from www.free-project.org concludes about electronic voting systems: "From my experience of designing and developing GNU.FREE over the past three years it has become clear that creating an Internet Voting system sufficiently secure, reliable and anonymous is extremely difficult, if not impossible. As Bruce Schneier points out "a secure Internet voting system is theoretically possible, but it would be the first secure networked application ever created in the history of computers."
He further says, "I've come to the realization that electronic voting of any type -- even if it's open source -- is a terrible, terrible idea. Very often, technology provides the smokescreen to allow people to steal votes. If you look at the actual voting process, the risks are humongous."


posted by wenz at 6:45:00 PM |

 
Steal This Book


Abbie Hoffman’s long out of print Yippie classic published in 1970 is a timeless handbook for revolution and offers an interesting view on how life was like in America in the 60s. It is now free to download and distribute.

Abbie Hoffman's FBI file: FOIA: Abbot Hoffman


posted by wenz at 8:38:00 PM |

 
Surveillance is Good for You, Honest



Transport For London, the city's mass-transit provider, has started a poster campaign (featuring the all-seeying eye of Horus) to drive the point home that CCTV cameras on London buses reduce crime (government statistics). The underlying message is that the public needs surveillance to feel safe. However, critics have argued that the number of violent crimes nonetheless has grown. At the most, the only good public surveillance does is it displaces crime to less surveilled areas if criminals don't take cameras "out of service" by wearing a baseball cap or hood. Also, CCTVs main use is after-the-fact, i.e., trying to identify the (unmasked) perp after the crime has happened.

One step at a time people's rights are taken away, until we can't speak out against them anymore, until the freedom to disagree with the government is gone. Today we are only monitored, what's the next step going to be? At least in Great Britain it is admitted that Big Brother is watching you, even if it's given the spin that it's for the people's own good.

Big Brother is watching: Not in 1984 but in 2002 The website that brought attention to the poster

Guide to Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) destruction This is to be viewed as proof-of-concept, not condoning vandalism

ISee - No Surveillance Map The Institute for Applied Autonomy has provided a route-planer to avoid cameras (for Manhattan only as of yet). They state: "CCTV isn't much of a threat to terrorists. While CCTV systems can help police reconstruct events after an incident, CCTV is not terribly effective either in preventing attacks or in identifying suspects. As a result, terrorists spend remarkably little time worrying about the locations of surveillance cameras."



posted by wenz at 11:27:00 AM |

 
Senator Wellstone Died in Plane Crash

Senator Wellstone's plane crashed two miles from the airport, and all eight passengers (including his wife and daughter) were killed. Wellstone was "the little guy who takes on the big guys". He was a staunch opponent of Bush's policies and voted against the Homeland Security Departement, and in favor of an independent 9/11 investigation. He also was the only Democratic senator running for re-election to vote against granting President George W. Bush the authority to use military force against Iraq.

A lot of critical minds have speculated that Wellstone was killed to tip the Senate balance. Others, less critical have attributed the accident to the forces of nature. It is however interesting to see what key role Wellstone's death plays to get Bush what he wants; the majority in the Senate. The Democrats traditionally had the majority in the Senate, when there was a Republican president and vice versa. Now, the Republicans are planning to control Congress. We know that there was a movement to try to oust Wellstone with massive amounts of mysterious money; nobody knows where it came from (that means there's no money trail, but look at who benefits).

Some facts that indicate an assasination:

* He died one day before the deadline of naming a replacement candidate ended, that means that Wellstone's name could have been put on the ballot and would have received a lot of sympathy votes.
* Weather reports as well as a local pilot commented on the weather as totally different as to what as been desribed by the media as icy and snowy conditions.
* Sabotage has been completely rejected as a possible cause of the crash
* The replacement Democrat Mondale has decided against using planes and now travels only by bus
* Conflicting statements about whether the plane was equipped with a voice recorder
* Wellstone avoided an apparent assassination attempt in Colombia two years ago.
* Wellstone witness sees flash of light near tail of plane. (Possible use of EMP weapons to disable the plane's electronic system)
* "They had just radioed in that they were coming in for a landing. They were only about 7 miles out. They gave no indication of any problem...and then... they lost all control and all communications in his plane instantly, without warning during a landing approach." www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0210/S00206.htm
* Wellstone's sons uninvited Dick Cheney from the memorial service which is needless to say highly unusual.

Senator Wellstone's death is very convienient for a lot of people, Republicans aren't the only one who could possibly gain from it. Wellstone wasn't in line with his fellow Democrats on many issues. What made certain people fear this man was his uncompromising stand among corruptibles.


posted by wenz at 3:04:00 PM |