November 17, 2004

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Thank God My Father Discovered The Internet

November 17, 2004 in Main Page | 2 comments

My Dad just sent me this, via email

Kids Answers to Bible Questions

Pay special attention to the wording and spelling. If you know the Bible, even a little, you’ll find this hilarious! It comes from a Catholic Elementary school test. Kids were asked questions about the old and new testaments.

The following statements about the Bible were written by children. They have not been retouched nor corrected. (i. e., incorrect spelling has been left in).

1. In the first book of the bible, Guinessis. God got tired of creating the world so he took the sabbath off.

2. Adam and Eve were created from an Apple tree. Noah’s wife was called Joan of Ark. Noah built an ark and the animals came on in pears.

3. Lots wife was a pillar of salt during the day, but a ball of fire during the night.

4. The Jews were a proud people and throughout history they had trouble with unsympathetic Genitals.

5. Sampson was a strongman who let himself be led astray by a Jezebel like Delilah.

6. Samson slayed the Philistines with the axe of the Apostles.

7. Moses led the Jews to the Red sea where they made unleavened bread which is bread without any ingredients.

8. The Egyptians were all drowned in the dessert, Afterwards, Moses went up to Mount Cyanide to get the ten ammendments.

9. The first commandment was when Eve told Adam to eat the apple.

10. The seventh Commandment is thou shalt not admit adultery.

11. Moses died before he ever reached Canada . Then Joshua led the Hebrews in the battle of Geritol.

12. The greates miricle in the bible is when Joshua told his son to stand

still and he obeyed him.

13. David was a Hebrew king who was skilled at playing the liar. He fought the Finkelsteins, a race of people who lived in bibical times.

14. Solomon, one of Davids sons, had 300 wives and 700 porcupines.

15. When Mary heard she was the mother of Jesus, she sang the Magna Carta.

16. When the three wise guys from the east side arrived, they found Jesus in the manager.

17. Jesus was born because Mary had an immaculate contraption.

18. St. John the blacksmith dumped water on his head.

19. Jesus enunciated the Golden Rule, which says to do unto others before they do one to you. He also explained, a man doth not live by sweat alone.

20. It was a miricle when Jesus rose from the dead and managed to get the tombstone off the entrance.

21. T he people who followed the lord were called the 12 decibels.

22. The epistels were the wives of the apostals.

23. One of the oppossums was St. Matthew who was also a taximan.

24. St. Paul cavorted to christianity, he preached holy acrimony, which is

another name for marriage.

25. Christians have only one spouse. This is called monotony.

Getting Mad(der) and Doing Something

November 17, 2004 in Main Page | 4 comments

Dave Pollard recently challenged me, in an email, as to what we all could DO about the current situations. I replied that building awareness, and then facilitating understanding on a wide-spread scale, were imo actions, and that blogging is and remains important in that role. But obviously not enough, not the whole story.

And I regularly muse on what various forms of civil disobedience might look like in North America. I suppose we know that marching in the streets does lead to freedom enclosures, and might end up with some form of Kent State situation … just a matter of time and place.

And Tom once suggested to me that we would never see a France-like general strike in North America, that it’s de facto illegal (?)

But I suppose if enough people formed a silent, organized, systematic and sustained silent, credit-card based civil action directed at the corporate world, we’d see some interesting question marks float up.

Then this morning, Euan Semple sent me by email one of the most articulate and beautifully-thought-out pieces connecting the dots between the “war on terror”, corporate profits, the schism between justice and human rights and the ongoing traumatization of the less fortunate in society. It was written, and delivered as a speech, by Arundhati Roy, an Indian writer and activist who has my everlasting respect.

Here are two moving, haunting pieces from her speech, which she titled Peace and the Corporate Liberation Theology.

This first excerpt is one of the clearest and hardest-hitting denuciations that shines a bright light through the three years of bullshit crammed down peoples’ throats by the Bush administration in cahoots with the corporate media. The Bush people are too far gone to be chastised, really, but the coproate media in the States deserves villification, and they deserve to be put out of business.

The invasion of Iraq will surely go down in history as one of

the most cowardly wars ever fought. It was a war in which a band of

rich nations, armed with enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world

several times over, rounded on a poor nation, falsely accused it of

having nuclear weapons, used the United Nations to force it to disarm,

then invaded it, occupied it and are now in the process of selling it.

This second excerpt is the one that makes me wonder - hard, and in a flash of insight, made me realize that even if 50% or more of Americans don’t support this war, and couldn’t unseat George Bush … if they all decdied to take economic action, non-violent economic action (which is clearly in their power to do, on a daily basis) major change could be made to occur. Major change could be made to occur much more quickly than planning, scheming and organizing for elections in 2006 and 2008.

If you really want to climb out, there’s good news and bad news.

The good news is that the advance party began the climb some time ago.

They’re already half way up. Thousands of activists across the world

have been hard at work preparing footholds and securing the ropes to

make it easier for the rest of us. There isn’t only one path up. There

are hundreds of ways of doing it. There are hundreds of battles being

fought around the world that need your skills, your minds, your

resources. No battle is irrelevant. No victory is too small.

The bad news is that colorful demonstrations, weekend marches and

annual trips to the World Social Forum are not enough. There have to

be targeted acts of real civil disobedience with real consequences.

Maybe we can’t flip a switch and conjure up a revolution.

But there are several things we could do. For example, you could make a list of

those corporations who have profited from the invasion of Iraq and

have offices here in Australia. You could name them, boycott them,

occupy their offices and force them out of business. If it can happen

in Bolivia, it can happen in India. It can happen in Australia.

Why not?

From The “Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction” Files …

November 17, 2004 in Main Page | 1 comment

over at What Really Happened

One of the items at that blog links to uncensored footage of the US Marine killing a wounded resident of Fajullah (my term - rather than “insurgent”). I didn’t watch it … I don’t need to to decide that it is despicable, should not have happened, and represents both a war crime, and because of the psychotic decisions and policies responsible fort hat Marine being there, a crime against humanity.

As you watch this video, and the older ones I relinked, just keep these facts in mind.

1. There were no banned weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Iraq was NOT defying the United Nations.

2. Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11.

3. Saddam was NOT helping Al Qaeda. They were political opposites, with Al Qaeda favoring theocratic rule (like the fundies do in this country) while Saddam’s was a secular government.

4. Saddam did not gas the Kurds. Iran did.

5. Saddam is in jail, even though nobody can actually find any evidence of the crimes he is accused of.

So, why is the US in Iraq at all, let along committing war crimes?

Holy Shit ! Is Right

November 17, 2004 in Main Page | 4 comments

I just received an email from Tom Matrullo titled “Re: holy shit”. I guess this email is flying around a fair bit tonight.

It’s with respect to some of the ongoing digging into voting irregularities in some counties in some states in the USA.

Please read this. I believe this is unfolding at this present time.

Original message

Volusia County election records just got put on lockdown

Dueling lawyers, election officials gnashing teeth, Votergate.tv film crew

catching it all.

Here’s what happened so far:

Friday Black Box Voting investigators Andy Stephenson and Kathleen Wynne

popped in to ask for some records. They were rebuffed by an elections

official named Denise. Bev Harris called on the cell phone from

investigations in downstate Florida, and told Volusia County Elections

Supervisor Deanie Lowe that Black Box Voting would be in to pick up our Nov.

2 Freedom of Information request, or would file for a hand recount. “No,

Bev, please don’t do that!” she exclaimed. But this is the way it has to be,

folks. We didn’t back down.

Monday Bev, Andy and Kathleen came in with a film crew and asked for the

FOIA request. Deanie Lowe gave it to us with a smile, but I noticed that one

item, the polling place tapes, were not copies of the real ones, but instead

were new printouts, done on Nov. 15, and not signed by anyone.

I asked to see the real ones, and they told us for “privacy” reasons we

can’t have copies of the signed ones. I insisted on at least viewing them

(although refusing to give us copies of the signatures is not legally

defensible, according to our attorney). They said the real ones were in the

County Elections warehouse. It was quittin’ time and we arranged to come

back this morning to review them.

Lana Hires, an employee who gained some notoriety in a Diebold memo, where

she asked for an explanation of minus 16,022 votes for Gore, so she wouldn’t

have to stand there “looking dumb” when the auditor came in, was

particularly unhappy about seeing us in the office. She vigorously shook her

head when Deanie Lowe suggested we go to the warehouse.

Kathleen Wynne and I showed up at the warehouse at 8:15 this morning. There

was Lana Hires looking especially gruff, yet surprised. She ordered us out.

Well, we couldn’t see why because there she was, with a couple other people,

handling the original poll tapes. You know, the ones with the signatures on

them. We stepped out and they promptly shut the door behind us.

There was a trash bag on the porch outside the door. I looked into it and

what do you know, but there were poll tapes in there. They came out and

glared at us. We drove away a small bit, and then videotaped the license

plates of the two vehicles marked ‘City Council’ member. Others came out to

glare and soon all doors were slammed.

So, we went and parked behind a bus to see what they would do next. They

pulled out some large pylons, which blocked the door. I decided to go look

at the garbage some more. Kathleen videotaped this. A man came out and I

immediately wrote a public records request for the contents of the garbage

bag, which also contained ballots — real ones, but not filled out.

A brief tug of war occurred, tearing the garbage bag open. We then looked

through it, as Pete looked on. He was quite friendly.

We collected various poll tapes and other information and asked if they

could copy it for us, for our public records request. “You won’t be going

anywhere,” said Pete. “The deputy is on his way.”

Yes, not one but two police cars came up and then two county elections

officials, and we all stood around discussing the merits of my public

records request.

They finally let us go, about the time our film crew arrived, and we all

trooped off to the elections office. There, the plot thickened.

We began to compare the special printouts given to us with the signed

polling tapes from election night. Lo and behold, some were missing. We also

found some that didn’t match. In fact, in one location, precinct 215, an

African-American precinct, the votes were off by hundreds, in favor of

George W. Bush and other Republicans.

Hmm. Which was right? Our polling tape, specially printed on Nov. 15,

without signatures, or theirs, printed on Nov. 2, with up to 8 signatures

per tape?

Well, then it became even more interesting. Lana Hires took it upon herself

to box up some items from an office, which appeared to contain — you

guessed it — polling place tapes. She took them to the back of the building

and disappeared.

Then, voting integrity advocates from Volusia and Broward, decided now would

be a good time to go through the trash at the elections office. Lo and

behold, they found all kinds of memos and some polling place tapes, fresh

from Volusia elections office.

So, we compared these with the Nov. 2 signed ones and the “special’ ones

from Nov. 15 given to us, unsigned, and we found several of the MISSING poll

tapes. There they were: In the garbage.

So, Kathleen went to the car and got the polling place tapes we had pulled

from the warehouse garbage. My my my. There were not only discrepancies, but

a polling place tape that was signed by six officials.

This was a bit disturbing, since the employees there told us that bag was

destined for the shredder.

By now, a county lawyer had appeared on the scene, suddenly threatening to

charge us extra for the time we took looking at the real stuff they had

withheld from us in our FOIA. Other lawyers appeared, phoned, people had

meetings, Lana glowered at everyone, and someone shut the door in the office

holding the GEMS server.

Andy then went to get the GEMS server locked down. He also got the memory

cards locked down and secured, much to the dismay of Lana. They were

scattered around unsecured in any way before that.

We then all agreed to convene tomorrow morning, to further audit, discuss

the hand count that Black Box Voting will require of Volusia County, and of

course, it is time to talk about contesting the election in Volusia.

Bev Harris

Executive Director

Black Box Voting

Coming Soon To A Country Near You

November 17, 2004 in Main Page | 1 comment

From the Industry Standard

Blogger goes multilingual

By Juan Carlos Perez

The Blogger Web-logging service broke away from its English-only status on Monday, becoming available in 9 other languages in what Google Inc. is calling the first phase of the service’s internationalization. Now, key Blogger sections, such as its sign-in and account pages, are available in Japanese, traditional Chinese, simplified Chinese, Korean, French, Italian, Spanish, German and Brazilian Portuguese, Google announced.

The Blogger posting interface will be translated into these 9 languages “soon,” as Blogger’s international expansion continues in coming months, Google said.

Google acquired the Blogger service last year when it bought the service’s creator, Pyra Labs Inc.

Google, which operates the world’s most widely-used Internet search engine, has been busy building up a suite of complementary Internet services, such as the Gmail Web mail service and the Picasa image management and sharing tool.

Industry observers have pointed out that by offering services that complement its core Internet search engine, Google can build more loyal and lasting relationships with users, something that will be key for Google to complete against rivals Microsoft Corp., America Online Inc. and Yahoo Inc. in the consumer Internet services market.