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do you share music files? do not go to jail. do not go directly to jail.

http://www.eff.org/IP/P2P/howto-notgetsued.php

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) announced on June 25, 2003, that it will begin suing users of peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing systems within the next few weeks. According to the announcement, the RIAA will be targeting users who upload/share "substantial" amounts of copyrighted music. The RIAA has stated that it will choose who to sue by using software that scans users' publicly available P2P directories and then identifies the ISP of each user. Then, using the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), the RIAA will subpoena the ISP for each user's name, address, and other personal information in order to sue that user.

...While there is no way to know exactly what the RIAA is going to do, who it is going to sue, or even how much music qualifies as a "substantial" amount, users of P2P networks can take the following steps to reduce their chances of being sued:

Either: Make sure there are no potentially infringing files in your shared folder. This would ordinarily mean that your shared folder contains only files 1) that are in the public domain, 2) for which you have permission to share, or 3) that are made available under pro-sharing licenses, such as the Creative Commons license or other open media licenses, and remove all potentially misleading file names that might be confused with the name of an RIAA artist or song (e.g., "Usher" or "Madonna") from your shared folder.

Or: Disable the "sharing" or "uploading" features on your P2P application that allow other users on the network to get copies of files from your computer or scan any of your music directories. We hate this option, but it does appear that it will reduce your chances of becoming an RIAA target right now. For instructions on how to do this for particular applications, EFF suggests (but cannot guarantee) the following links:

Grokster - http://www.grokster.com/helpfaq.html#Stop%20Sharing%20files ; http://www.oit.duke.edu/helpdesk/filesharing/grokster.html

Morpheus - http://www.oit.duke.edu/helpdesk/filesharing/morpheus.html ; http://penguin.cc.edu/peer/peer2peer.html#morpheus

KaZaA - http://www.oit.duke.edu/helpdesk/filesharing/kazaa.html ; http://penguin.cc.edu/peer/peer2peer.html#kazaa

Aimster/Madster - Windows: http://www.oit.duke.edu/helpdesk/filesharing/aimster.html ; Mac OS: http://www.oit.duke.edu/helpdesk/filesharing/aimster_mac.html

Gnutella - Mactella: http://www.oit.duke.edu/helpdesk/filesharing/mactella.html ; Gnucleus: http://www.oit.duke.edu/helpdesk/filesharing/gnucleus.html ; Gnotella: http://www.oit.duke.edu/helpdesk/filesharing/gnotella.html

LimeWire - MacOS: http://www.oit.duke.edu/helpdesk/filesharing/limewiremac.html ; Windows: http://www.oit.duke.edu/helpdesk/filesharing/limewirewin.html or http://penguin.cc.edu/peer/peer2peer.html#limewire

BearShare - http://www.oit.duke.edu/helpdesk/filesharing/bearshare.html ; http://penguin.cc.edu/peer/peer2peer.html#bearshare

iMesh - http://www.oit.duke.edu/helpdesk/filesharing/imesh.html

WinMX - http://www.oit.duke.edu/helpdesk/filesharing/winmx.html ; http://penguin.cc.edu/peer/peer2peer.html#winmx

The RIAA appears to be targeting subpoenas at users who allow their computers to be "Supernodes" on the FastTrack P2P System (used, for instance, by KaZaA and Morpheus). In order to further reduce the risk of having your ISP subpoenaed or of being sued yourself, we recommend that you make sure your computer is not being used as a Supernode. To learn more about Supernodes and how to make sure your computer is not one, look here: http://www.whtvcable.com/fasttrack and http://helpdesk.princeton.edu/kb/display.plx?ID=9245. See also Disabling the Supernode function with KaZaA (PDF 331k).

If you receive notice that your ISP has been subpoenaed for your name and address, consider contacting www.subpoenadefense.org, where you can find information about how to defend your privacy and a list of attorneys willing to help. Contact your ISP and ask the people there to notify you immediately if they receive a subpoena seeking your identity.

If you receive a cease and desist letter from the RIAA, consider contacting Chilling Effects, where EFF and several law school clinics are creating a gallery of cease and desist letters along with basic information about the claims being made and your rights online.

Don't like the idea of turning off file-sharing or changing your file names to prevent stupid robots or RIAA employees from mistaking your files for infringements? Neither do we! Join EFF's campaign to make file-sharing legal while getting artists paid.

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life in liberated afghanistan

http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/comment/story/0,11447,1009459,00.html

More than 18 months after the collapse of the Taliban regime, there is a remarkable consensus among aid workers, NGOs and UN officials that the situation is deteriorating. There is a further point of consensus: that the deterioration is a direct consequence of "coalition" policy. Some 60 aid agencies have issued a joint statement pleading with the international community to deploy forces across Afghanistan to bring some order... Privately, many aid workers fear that it is too late. Even if the political will existed, foreign troops may no longer be in a position to restore order. To do so would require going to war with the warlords themselves. The warlords, of course, as friends of the "coalition", are also part of the government. They have private armies, raise private funds, pursue private interests and control private treasuries. None of these do they wish to give up.

...Security never came because, when the Taliban fell, the US would not agree to the deployment of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) outside Kabul. Why? Because the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, was already planning the invasion of Iraq and did not want men tied down in peacekeeping. The Pentagon prefers to pay the warlords to run the country outside Kabul, dressing up the exercise with a loya jirga in which 80% of those "elected" were warlords.

...A Human Rights Watch report published on Tuesday documents crimes of kidnapping, rape, intimidation, robbery, extortion and murder, committed not in spite of the government but by its forces - by the warlords and their police and soldiers, who are paid, directly and indirectly, by US and British taxpayers.

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what's good for chrysler

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0720-02.htm

President George Bush is targeting the international treaty to save the ozone layer which protects all life on earth from deadly radiation... New US demands - tabled at a little-noticed meeting in Montreal earlier this month - threaten to unravel one of the greatest environmental success stories of the past few decades, causing millions of deaths from cancer... by seeking to perpetuate the use of the most ozone-destructive chemical still employed in developed countries, otherwise soon to be phased out.

Ironically, it was sustained pressure from the Reagan administration, in which Mr Bush's father served as vice-president, that ensured the treaty was adopted in the first place... Led by the US, nations moved with unprecedented speed to agree the treaty, called the Montreal Protocol, in 1987... President Bush's new demands threaten to throw the process into reverse.

They centre on a pesticide, methyl bromide, now the greatest attacker of ozone left in industrialised countries. The US is responsible for a quarter of the world's consumption of the chemical... Nations are legally allowed to extend the use of small amounts in "critical" applications, but the US is demanding exemptions far beyond those permitted, for uses ranging from growing strawberries to tending golf courses. It is also pressing to exploit a loophole in the treaty - allowing the use of the chemical to treat wood packaging - so that, instead of being phased out, its use would increase threefold.

..."The US is reneging on the agreement, and working very, very hard to get other countries to agree," said David Doniger, a former senior US government official dealing with ozone issues, who now works for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "If it succeeds, it threatens to unravel the whole fabric of the treaty." Dr Joe Farman, the Cambridge scientist who discovered the Antarctic ozone hole, added: "This is madness. We do not need this chemical. We do need the ozone layer. How stupid can people be?"

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i'll tell you how stupid.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/07/30/1513221

Former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Joseph Wilson predicts the situation in Iraq will deteriorate so much over the next year Bush may resort to start another war in order to win the 2004 election. Wilson is the retired diplomat who visited Niger in a CIA-sponsored trip last year during which he determined the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium deal was bogus. His conclusion was ignored by the Bush White House.

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quotable quotes

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=429148

"It's going to take time to gather the evidence and analyse the mounds, the miles of documents we have uncovered." -bush, press conf july 31

"I'm confident that our search will yield that which I strongly believe." -yup, same guy, same day

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pointdexter down to the felt

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/a/2003/07/31/national1408EDT0620.DTL

John Poindexter will resign his position at the Pentagon after a research project he was overseeing was condemned by Congress as an "egregious error of judgment." A senior defense official said Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Poindexter realized that "it would be difficult" for him to continue in his job after the flap over a plan to establish a futures market that would have allowed traders to profit by correctly predicting assassinations and terrorist strikes in the Middle East.

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http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/6414484.htm

...Opposition to the war in Iraq came under fire Tuesday from Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, who said war critics make their party appear weak on defense. Lieberman's comments came one day after he delivered a foreign policy address accusing his antiwar rivals of sending out a message that they "don't know a just war when they see it."

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http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/politics/6406411.htm

...Fears festered Monday during meetings here of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, whose leaders say Democrats cannot get elected unless they preach moderate views... ''The Democratic Party has an important choice to make,'' said Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, the DLC's national chairman. "Do we want to vent, or do we want to govern?" [some venting would be refreshing --mrs.h]

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separation of church and state? be afraid.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/6413566.htm

A persuasive article in last month's Washington Monthly argues that to win in 2004, the Democratic nominee will need to get religion... A poll released Thursday by the Pew Research Center and the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life shows just how much room there is for a uniquely Democratic appeal to the religious needs of the American electorate. True, the poll found that a significant minority of Americans would be reluctant to vote for a well-qualified candidate if he or she were a Muslim, and to a lesser extent an evangelical Christian, Catholic or Jew. But the real reservations among those surveyed were directed toward any candidate with no professed religion at all.

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your tax dollars at work.

http://www.bayarea.com/mld/cctimes/news/6416863.htm

WAUSAU, Wis. - A trio of Cabinet secretaries rolled by bus Tuesday across an ailing industrial swath of the upper Midwest, where they spread a message of sunshine about President Bush's economic policies... The bus tour was timed to capitalize on the income tax rate cuts that went into effect this month and the first of the $400 child tax credit checks, which were mailed out last week. "Did you get your check?" Snow asked a table of customers at Culver's Frozen Custard and ButterBurgers in Wausau.

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http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/columnist/block/2003-07-28-ym_x.htm

The IRS mailed the first batch of child tax credit checks last week, providing payments of up to $400 per child for millions of families... About 25 million taxpayers, or 19% of Americans who filed tax returns for 2002, will receive the tax credit... The IRS is also sending out letters informing eligible taxpayers that they'll receive a check. The letter will also show the amount of the payment. You should receive the letter a few days before your check arrives. Don't throw the notice away. You'll need it when you file your 2003 returns, says Charles Petz, vice president of TaxBrain. Your 2003 tax returns will include a worksheet where you'll be asked to reduce the $1,000 child tax credit by the amount of your advance payment. (mrs. henry would like to emphasize this point: "You'll be asked to reduce [next year's] child tax credit by the amount of your advance payment.")

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archived

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/06/02/tax.credit/

A provision that would have extended the child tax credit to families making between $10,500 and $26,626 was excluded from the final bill signed by President Bush.

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http://www.statesman.com/nationworld/content/news/073003/0730bushgaymar.html

President Bush said Wednesday that federal government lawyers are working on legislation that would define marriage as a union between a man and woman... He also reiterated his position that tax cuts will speed the turnaround of the economy.

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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2003/07/30/state1954EDT0185.DTL

The Supreme Court, ruling in a lawsuit brought against the Oxnard Police Department, said in May that criminal suspects are not required to have their Miranda rights read to them when being interrogated if ultimately they are not charged with a crime. The ruling dismissed part of a lawsuit brought by Oliverio Martinez, 34, who alleged the police violated his Fifth Amendment right against compelled self incrimination. The Supreme Court, however, sent the case to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for further consideration.

On Wednesday, the San Francisco-based appeals court, ruling 3-0, said the Oxnard man could pursue a 14th Amendment due process claim. The appeals court said that Martinez's 1997 hospital interrogation -- after being shot in the face by the police -- may have amounted to such atrocious police conduct that it "shocks the conscience" in violation of the Constitution.

...The man, who is now blind and paralyzed, was shot in a scuffle with officers as he rode his bike in rural Ventura County where police were searching for drugs. He was never charged with a crime... Martinez also alleges excessive force by Oxnard officers. The case is Martinez v. Oxnard, 00-56520.

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tears of amadou diallo

http://kyw.com/Local%20News/local_story_211112529.html

State troopers who shot and killed a man during a chase last week mistook a crack pipe the man held for a weapon, according to a published report... The troopers fired 39 shots. The sources told the newspaper that at least 10 of those shots hit [the victim]. One of the bullets hit a trooper's flashlight, causing an injury to that officer's hand.

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http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20030728/ZNYT02/307280399

INGLEWOOD, Calif., July 27 As a verdict nears in the trial of two police officers charged in the videotaped beating of a 16-year-old, about 1,500 so-called peace ambassadors, many of them current or former gang members, are preparing to fan out in this city of 120,000 to spread the word that violence accomplishes nothing... The volunteers have been meeting for months, being trained in conflict resolution by social services workers, peace advocates and the police.

...In the case at issue here, Officer Jeremy Morse, who is white, was seen picking up Donovan Jackson, an African-American teenager who was handcuffed and lying face down, by his collar and the seat of his pants and slamming him onto the trunk of a police car. Officer Morse then punched Mr. Jackson in the face. The encounter occurred on July 6, 2002, after Mr. Jackson and his father, Coby Chavis, stopped for gas in Inglewood. The police said that they were questioning Mr. Chavis about an expired tag on his Ford Taurus and that Mr. Jackson had ignored a command to sit quietly in the back of the patrol car. Officer Morse, who was fired from the force, was charged with assault under the color of authority. His colleague, Officer Bijan Darvish, who remains on the force, was charged with filing a false report. After a seven-day trial, the jury began deliberating on Thursday and could deliver a verdict Monday.

...The Jackson case also brought to mind more recent incidents in Los Angeles, such as that of a homeless black woman who was shot to death by an officer because, he said, she was holding a screwdriver in a threatening manner, and of an African-American actor who was shot nine times at a Halloween party after he pointed a fake gun at a police officer. In Riverside, east of Los Angeles, a young black woman sleeping in her car with a gun in her lap was shot to death by officers who had been unable to wake her. The officers were cleared in all three cases.

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band still on the run

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/main.asp?SectionID=2&SubSectionID=7&ArticleID=30646

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - In the fourth day away from their homes in Texas, 11 self-exiled senators met for breakfast Thursday around a long table littered with newspapers, notepads and coffee cups. Taped to a wall in the Marriott conference room was a poster with a message penned in green marker: "July 31, 27 days left." The Democrats - who refer to themselves as the "Texas 11" - fled Texas on Monday to block a GOP-backed redistricting plan. They have vowed to stay in New Mexico up to 30 days - when the Senate's current special session comes to an end - or until the lieutenant governor reinstates a rule requiring a two-thirds vote to take up issues, including redistricting.

Republican Gov. Rick Perry on Thursday urged the Democrats to return to the Capitol... When asked why not drop redistricting from the agenda this session so that the Democrats would come back and address the health care issues, Perry said, "That's like negotiating for hostages."

...Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, said the burden to end the dispute is on the Republicans, since they changed the rules... The Democratic senators fled the state to stay out of reach of Texas law officers who might be sent to get them. They say they will return to Texas if Perry ends the special session or Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst reinstates the rule. "When either of these two requests are granted, we will be on the first flight home," [Sen.] Van de Putte said... Democrats blocked a Senate vote on redistricting in the first special session because of the rule requiring two-thirds of the 31 members to agree to bring a bill up for debate. Eleven Democrats and one Republican opposed consideration, thwarting the measure. In the new special session, which began Monday just after the Democrats left town, Dewhurst is arranging the order of bills so the two-thirds rule is not needed to bring up redistricting. GOP-backed redistricting proposals could cause more than 1.4 million minorities in Texas to lose effective representation in Congress, Van de Putte said.

...The Senate walkout comes less than three months after a similar move by House Democrats, who broke a quorum in their chamber and killed a redistricting bill by fleeing to Ardmore, Okla.

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http://www.santafenewmexican.com/main.asp?SectionID=2&subsectionID=7&articleID=30591

ALBUQUERQUE - [New Mexico] Gov. Bill Richardson, standing in front of a Texas flag, welcomed and praised the actions of 11 fugitive Democratic Texas state senators who came to New Mexico to thwart a Republican redistricting plan. "These men and women showed courage," Richardson told dozens of reporters at Pyramid Marriott, where the Texas lawmakers have holed up. "They acted on principle to protect their constituents who might be disenfranchised."

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so anyway...

http://jerusalem.indymedia.org/news/2003/07/125747.php

By Robert Fisk in Baghdad, 28 July 2003 - Obsessed with capturing Saddam Hussein, American soldiers turned a botched raid on a house in the Mansur district of Baghdad yesterday into a bloodbath, opening fire on scores of Iraqi civilians in a crowded street and killing up to11 , including two children, their mother and crippled father. At least one civilian car caught fire, cremating its occupants. The vehicle carrying the two children and their mother and father was riddled by bullets as it approached a razor-wired checkpoint outside the house.

...Whatever political advantages were gained by the killing of Saddam's sons have been squandered. A doctor at the Yarmouk hospital, which received four of the dead, turned on me angrily last night, shouting: "If an American came to my emergency room, maybe I would kill him."

...At the scene of the killings, there was pandemonium. While US troops were loading the bullet-shattered cars on trucks - and trying to stop cameramen filming the carnage - crowds screamed abuse at them. One American soldier a few feet from me climbed into the seat of his Humvee, threw his helmet on the floor of the vehicle and shouted: "Shit! Shit!"

There was no doubt about the target: the home of Sheikh Rabia Mohamed Habib, a prominent tribal leader who had met Saddam but who was not even in his house when the Americans stormed it. One report says they killed a guard as they entered. "The Americans searched the house completely, very roughly," Sheikh Habib said. "It seems they thought Saddam Hussein was inside." It appears the killings started as the troops were searching the building and as motorists approached the barbed wire which the soldiers had placed without warning across the road. Witnesses said the first car contained at least two men. "The second contained two children about 10, their mother and their father who had been wounded in the Iran-Iraq war - he was a cripple," a local shopkeeper told me. "They all died. The man's legs were cut in half by the bullets," he added. A third car then approached the Americans, who opened fire again.

...When another car arrived US troops riddled it with more bullets and it burst into flames. It is believed that two people were inside and both were burnt to death. "The Americans didn't try to help the civilians they had shot, not once," a witness said. "They let the car burn and left the bodies where they lay, even the children. It was we who had to take them to the hospitals."

...Last night, there were reports from the southern city of Karbala that three men had been shot dead by American troops during a demonstration.

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the new york times pipes up

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/31/opinion/31THU1.html?pagewanted=print&position=

...News conferences do not play to [Bush's] considerable strengths... he has generally avoided them. But having decided to make a rare exception yesterday, Mr. Bush should have been able to come up with better responses to two big and obvious questions: why he ordered the invasion of Iraq and why he pushed for tax cuts that have left the nation sinking into a hopeless quagmire of debt. Mr. Bush's vague and sometimes nearly incoherent answers suggested that he was either bedazzled by his administration's own mythmaking or had decided that doubts about his foreign and domestic policies could best be parried by ignoring them.

...When asked whether the United States had lost credibility with the rest of the world since neither weapons of mass destruction nor a strong Al Qaeda connection had been uncovered in Iraq, the president veered off into a tour through American history and the difficulty of coming up with an Iraqi version of Thomas Jefferson.

... Given the rambling non-answers the president gave to questions about Iraq and the economy, it was interesting to hear how focused he was when someone asked how, with no opponent, he planned to spend $170 million or more on the primary. "Just watch me," Mr. Bush said concisely. There is one area in which the president's thinking is crystal clear.

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http://www.reuters.com/printerFriendlyPopup.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=3189310

Secretary of State Colin Powell on Wednesday called former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein "a piece of trash waiting to be collected" but declined to say how long it may take U.S. forces to find him. Powell also told Reuters in an interview he currently sees no reason for the United States to give up the authority it and Britain have as "occupying powers" in Iraq.

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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030730/ap_on_re_mi_ea/saddam_tape_2

The CIA has determined the lastest audio message purportedly from Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, in which he marks the deaths of his sons, is most likely authentic, a CIA official said Wednesday.

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for those who think young

http://news.statesmanjournal.com/article.cfm?i=65395

More than 600 members of an Oregon Army National Guard infantry unit will be mobilized for the military campaign in Iraq, the largest call-up of Guard troops in the state since World War II.

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http://slate.msn.com/id/2086257/

Last week in a little-noticed article in Stars and Stripes [it was] report[ed] that the 3rd Infantry Division will no longer accommodate embedded reporters—or, with few exceptions, reporters period... Two soldiers with the 3rd I.D., who had grown all too accustomed to talking freely with the press, publicly lambasted not just the brass but the political bosses—on network television, faces exposed, names on the record—in startlingly stark language. One of the soldiers told ABC News, "If Donald Rumsfeld was here, I'd ask him for his resignation." The other said, "I've got my own 'Most Wanted' list. … The Aces in my deck are Paul Bremer, Donald Rumsfeld, George Bush, and Paul Wolfowitz."

After that exhibition, the spokesman for the 3rd Infantry issued a statement that the unit was "no longer embedding media for short stays, effective the beginning of this week." The unit's commander, Maj. Gen. Buford Blount, went further, deciding, as Stars and Stripes put it, "to stop letting reporters spend time with troops, except to gather information for pre-approved 'news features.' "

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from 'soldiers for the truth'

http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=Hacks%20Target%20Homepage.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=24&rnd=471.06395072315103

The word is that Gen. John Abizaid has a highly paid civilian public-relations adviser on his staff, Jim Wilkinson, reported to be a “Republican operative” formerly at the White House who rakes in more than $100,000 a year and holds the equivalent rank of a major general. I’m told he actually wore a uniform while advising Tommy Franks on how to package the invasion to please the patriots back home and play the polls – although, of course, what we were told wasn’t exactly true.

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racial purity in israel

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/323523.html

The Knesset Interior Committee held a stormy discussion Tuesday over a proposed government bill meant to halt granting citizenship or residency status to Palestinian residents of the territories who marry Israelis... The government has argued that the bill is a necessary anti-terror measure.

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spin poet

http://www.prolog.net/webnews/wed/bc/Qmideast-sharon-barrier.R3vX_DlU.html

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon defended plans to build a controversial barrier around the West Bank, insisting it will encourage peace between Israelis and Palestinians. "Speaking professionally, it's a good fence. A good fence will bring, I believe, good friendship," he told NBC television.

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india agrees

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64700-2003Jul29.html

India built a thick mud wall and an 8-foot-high, 3-tier maze of barbed-wire fence near the border in Kashmir... The fence is part of India's ambitious project to seal its entire 1,800-mile border with Pakistan.

... Two months ago, officials began to string barbed wire across stretches of the disputed, mountainous cease-fire line, called the Line of Control, which encloses much of Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan considers Jammu and Kashmir disputed territory and objects to the fence... But Indian officials claim they have a sovereign right to build inside Indian territory and accuse Pakistan of intensifying shooting and shelling where work is underway. To escape the Pakistani gunfire, Indian soldiers are building a 10-foot-high mud wall by night on the border, then work behind the wall during the day. Indian officials claim that Pakistan is firing at the earth-scooping machines... About 43 miles of the border between Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan is now closed off.

...India is also using Israeli ground sensors, radars and French thermal-imaging devices to detect movement along the Line of Control, which is patrolled by the Indian army.

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bush fires back

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&e=4&u=/ap/20030729/ap_on_re_mi_ea/us_mideast

"I would hope in the long term a fence would be irrelevant. But, look, the fence is a sensitive issue, I understand," the [American] president said, standing alongside [israeli prime minister] Sharon at a Rose Garden news conference.

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hey wait a minnit.

http://64.224.42.246/weblog/dannylog.cfm

According to South Africa’s Mail and Guardian, The Palestinian government said yesterday that Ariel Sharon had jeopardized last month's ceasefire by rejecting President Bush's plea to stop building his security fence through the West Bank. By the way, what is this fence that William Safire of the Times supports today? Eli Stephens, a reader, wrote to his local paper, the San Jose Mercury to ask: "The Mercury News describes the structure being constructed by Israel as a "Security Fence." This "fence" is a 25-foot high concrete wall, higher than the Berlin Wall or the sound walls lining our freeways. Since when is that a fence?"

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free press terror!

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=7662

On 3 May 2003, World Press Freedom Day, the news agencies reported the death of a British journalist in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip. An acclaimed documentary filmmaker who had received several awards, James Miller, 34, was killed by a shot in the neck. Two weeks earlier, another cameraman had died in the Palestinian territories... He was Nazeh Darwazi, 44, who had been working for two years for the American TV news agency, Associated Press Television News (APTN). He was hit by a shot in the head as he was filming clashes between Palestinians and the IDF in the centre of Nablus in the northern part of the West Bank... Wearing a yellow fluorescent vest, he was identifiable as a journalist when he was killed. He was also accompanied by four other Palestinian photographers and cameramen working for local and international news media [and so on].

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david nelsons of the world beware

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4978-2003Jul30.html

A passenger-screening system designed to help capture terrorists could also be used to target people suspected of violent crimes, under a proposal approved by Department of Homeland Security officials. Previously, government officials said the surveillance system known as CAPPS II would be used only to target potential terrorists and their allies -- limits intended to assuage concerns about the program's impact on privacy and civil liberties. Plans called for using commercial information services to sort through demographic and marketing data to establish whether passengers are "rooted in the community." Classified government computers would then review passengers with questionable reports for signs of terrorist intent.

The new proposal shows that officials intend to use the system -- potentially the largest surveillance network created by the government -- more broadly to keep dangerous people off planes. That could include people wanted for domestic terrorism or violent crimes. Anyone flagged by the system would receive extra screening or, in some circumstances, be detained.

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and by the way.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/31/nyregion/31VOTE.html?th

The votes of as many as 60,000 people in New York City may not have been counted in the 2000 presidential election because of an adjustment made to city voting machines back in 1964, according to a lawsuit filed yesterday by advocacy groups... At issue was the decision to disable special sensor latches designed to prevent people from accidentally pulling back the levers to record their votes before they had finished picking their candidates. For reasons that still remain a mystery, the city's election workers disabled those latches in 1964, taking away a built-in safeguard that advocates say would have prevented thousands of residents from losing their votes in every election.

The suit, filed in Federal District Court in Brooklyn by the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, seeks to force city election officials to restore the latches on every machine, at an estimated cost of $275,000. "This is New York, not Florida; you want voting to work," said Dan Cantor, executive director of the Working Families Party, based in Brooklyn.

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what a week.

http://www.harpers.org/weekly-review/

A Belgian botanist announced that the banana as we know it will be extinct within a decade. British officials instituted a National Foreplay Day after a study found that many Britons were avoiding it. Austrian surgeons conducted the first successful transplant of a human tongue. A mayor in southern Spain banned men from going out on Thursday nights; the mayor, who will deploy brigades of women to patrol the streets and issue fines to errant males, proclaimed that "in future, Thursday will be a day for women." The Malaysian government decreed that a man may divorce his wife via text message; under Islamic Sharia law men are allowed to divorce their wives by uttering the word "talaq" ("I divorce you") three times. Northern Europeans were protesting Greek plans to license more brothels in time for the 2004 Olympics. The Canadian government released a 59-page user's manual for marijuana. Scientists in Rome concluded that pizza prevents cancer. Americans were spritzing their offspring with "ChildCalm," a spray that purports to mollify unruly children. The FDA approved a hormone shot for short kids.

...Japanese police replaced their sirens with the recorded sound of church bells, in hopes of soothing agitated criminals. The NAACP called for an inquiry into the death of a black man who was found hanging from a tree with his hands tied behind his back; local police had concluded that the man, who had been dating the daughter of a white police officer, had committed suicide. Two FBI agents interrogated a bookstore employee who was observed reading an article entitled "Weapons of Mass Stupidity." A folksinger was banned from performing at a Border's bookstore in Fredericksburg, Virginia, after she opined between songs that President Bush has "chicken legs" and would be well advised to lift weights. [and so on.]

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but is it art?

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/lifestyle/orl-livmobbing072403jul24,0,3404620.story

The Internet has spawned a gaggle of new verbs... Now you can add "flash mobbing" to that list. In recent weeks, New Yorkers have been using forwarded e-mails to coordinate "flash mobs," or not-so-random crowds that appear and dissipate within a matter of minutes... To protect the planned serendipity of each event, participants aren't told exactly what the mob is supposed to do until just before the event happens. For the most recent New York happening on July 2, participants passed around an e-mail telling them to assemble at the food court in Grand Central Station, where organizers (identifiable by the copies of the New York Review of Books they were holding) then gave mobbers printed instructions regarding what to do next. The result: Shortly after 7 p.m., about 200 people suddenly assembled on the mezzanine level of the Grand Hyatt Hotel next to Grand Central Station, applauded loudly for 15 seconds, then left.

..."I can't quite pinpoint the moment the idea came to me, or even why," said the event's organizer, Bill, in an e-mail... "At some point it just occurred to me that it would be funny to create a series of inexplicable mobs." ..."It went off much as you'd imagine, with very nervous security people very nervously scampering about, but never interacting or thinking to ask anyone what was going on," Hyatt mobber David Danzig wrote on his site, www.creamy.com/blog.

...For the second Manhattan event in June... scores of people suddenly descended on the rug department of Manhattan's flagship Macy's store. Following the organizers' instructions, "We all surrounded one rug and debated the merits of the rug," flash mob participant Quinn Heraty said in a telephone interview. "The salesmen hung out by the register and just kind of watched." The photo of one hapless rug salesman is priceless; check it out at cheesebikini.com.

Not surprisingly, it hasn't taken long for the mobbing concept to spread to other cities. One San Francisco flash mob organizer is flocksmart.com; Londoners, Bostonians and Chicagoans are also rumored to be putting together impromptu happenings. And though the events are just meant to be prankish fun, there is a serious side to the flash mobs, at least for some participants. "Honestly, it seems like a way to tweak the nose of those responsible for security, since things have gotten so tense since Sept. 11," flash mobber Eric Longman said via e-mail. "Remember, the First Amendment specifically protects the `right of the people peaceably to assemble.' "

...Getting groups together is easier these days thanks to e-mail, Savage says, but that's only the start. Imagine how simple it will be to assemble a flash mob, he says, when cell phones and handheld computers are equipped with "location aware" technology that will emit a "ping" at the right moment and tell potential mobbers exactly where to go.

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more flashmob reportage.

http://fredhoysted.com/weblog/journal.php

Thu Jul, 24 2003 - Flash Mob #5 - A Walk in the Park. A more surreal experience this evening than on past mobs. It took place in Central Park with us looking out onto Central Park West. If this mob had a theme, it was 'bird noises'. Stating with gentle realistic bird calls, we then built up to shrieks that I can only describe as 'gibbon-like' and finally a crescendo of "Come and git some Naycha. Nay-cha. Nay-cha."

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this just in from the promised land.

http://www.prolog.net/webnews/wed/ai/Qmideast-israel-arabs.RNmq_DlV.html

JERUSALEM, July 31 (AFP) - The Israeli parliament voted Thursday for a bill which prevents Palestinians married to Arab-Israelis from obtaining Israeli citizenship despite accusations that the measure was racist and discriminatory. A total of 53 deputies voted for the measure and 25 against... The law disqualifies Palestinians from the West Bank or Gaza Strip from gaining Israeli nationality through marriage and blocks the reunification of families split between Israel and the occupied territories... The estimated 1,100,000 Israeli Arabs in the Jewish state are Palestinians and their descendants who stayed on when Israel was established in 1948, unlike others who fled or were expelled from their homes.

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all about restraint.

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/323383.html

Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat on Thursday called for an emergency meeting of the Quartet of international mediators who drafted the road map to discuss "the escalation in Israeli action." The foursome is made up of the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia... [Aide] Abu Rudeineh said that its participants "would examine the Israeli escalation expressed through the lack of release of [Palestinian] prisoners, the continuation of the settlements, the refusal to withdraw from residential areas and the construction of the wall," a reference to the fence that Israel is building to separate itself from the West Bank.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Thursday that Israel's biggest mistake in the past had been its restraint in responding to violations of previous agreements with the Palestinians.

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luke 6:27

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,6847239%5E1702,00.html

NORTH Korea had dropped its demand for one-one-one negotiations with the United States and had directly notified key regional players that it was ready to meet them in six-way nuclear crisis talks, South Korean officials said today. South Korea, Japan, the United States, Russia and China received notifications at the same time from the Stalinist state, whose latest move triggered optimism throughout the region that a breakthrough in the nine-month nuclear standoff was at hand.

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luke 7:32

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=50JOCYUF5Y3RYCRBAELCFFA?type=topNews&storyID=3197632

RAMADI, Iraq (Reuters) - The U.S. military commander of Iraq's biggest province said Thursday American troops were virtually powerless to stop escalating booby-trap and bomb attacks on their convoys. "Frankly there is little that we can do as far as force protection," said Col. David Teeples, commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in al-Anbar province, home to some of Iraq's most restive and anti-American cities... Guerrilla attacks have killed 52 U.S. troops since President Bush declared major combat over on May 1... Ramadi is hit nearly every night by mortar attacks and U.S. military convoys frequently come under fire from rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) by day.

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a final set of words from moja vera, on the ground in iraq.

http://turningtables.blogspot.com/

...7.30.2003...my youngest soldier...the heat baby...just came down with some viral strain of the iraqi flu of death...103 temperature...explosive diarrhea and uncontrolled vomiting...poor guy...i know just how he feels...

we admitted him into the t.m.c. (troop medical center)...they're gonna keep him over night to monitor his condition...i went to see him when i came on shift...he had just finished his 6th i.v. bag...

. . . . i know i'm going to pick this thing up...we work to closely...the phone...the computer...the recycled air inside the van...i really don't need that...

i got deathly ill in afghanistan too . . . . we had no a/c down there and my temp was up around 103 too...i heard 104 and your brain starts to melt...there was no escaping it...we had these things called swamp coolers...there are kind of like a/c's but not as good...they work off of water instead of freon...if you were inside the tent you couldn't really tell that it was on until the generator died and it turned off...instant misery...i remember waking up out of my stupor and sweating from every inch of my body...

i doused my towel in water in an attempt to beat the heat...but the towel would just heat up to the temperature of the tent...and it soon felt like bath water...i would get up and sit outside...the full body ache...dizziness...nausea that never amounted to anything...i had nothing in my stomach to puke up...

the port a johns were the worst victims...the poor poor port a johns...some people were so sick that they would race to the toilet but they wouldn't quite make it...and they would miss...all over the back of the wall...or on the side...and the toilets seats were past any point of wiping off...the best you could do was lay baby wipes all over and pretend that you weren't really there...in a port a john...in afghanistan...sick to the brink of dementia...

i actually made it out of that flu season pretty well...some guys actually caught it more then once...they got so sick that they couldn't even get up and go to the port a john...they would just lay there in their cot...we would give up the inner liners of our sleeping bags because they would keep defecating in theirs...

i wonder if it has something to do with viruses from other parts of the world...like the colonist killing off the Indians type a deal...just imagine the worst sickness you have ever felt...now imagine not having any of the amenities of home that helped you in any way...toilets...a bed...a/c...cold water...a shower...someone there who loves you and wants to take care of you...