The old one is not full, but it’s already quite far down…
Please go take a look at my last post on China below. For some reason, it was published below Bernhard’s last piece.
Back to Main
February 10, 2005
Open Thread
Comments
Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia:
1. That the Code of Virginia is amended by adding a section numbered 18.2-387.1 as follows:
§ 18.2-387.1. Indecent display of underwear.
Any person who, while in a public place, intentionally wears and displays his below-waist undergarments, intended to cover a person’s intimate parts, in a lewd or indecent manner, shall be subject to a civil penalty of no more than $50. “Intimate parts” has the same meaning as in § 18.2-67.10.
HOUSE BILL NO. 1981
Posted by: Scape | Feb 10 2005 10:41 utc | 3
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000085&sid=ajEqJ1B9ecWE&refer=europe
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/02/10/nkorea.talks/
Posted by: Scape | Feb 10 2005 10:42 utc | 4
@Colman – yes – hypocrits.
BTW: If I don´t wear and display my below-waist undergarments the bill would be irrelevant – right?!
Does anyone know if people from outside the mono-theistic traditions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam) can tell the differences between them? Do they just look like one big religion from the outside?
For bonus marks, if the God of Islam is different to the God of Christianity, is the God of Methodism different to the God of Roman Catholicism?
Wow, the Moon seems to be on speed – hard to keep up with all the stuff, as I do not have much time at present. However, I came across this Independent article and it made me snort, especially the paragraph below.
EU snubs Rice to lift China arms embargo
But she pointed out that 2,000 people who were arrested after Tiananmen Square were still being detained, and that the US was worried about “the military balance in that region”, where American troops are stationed. She said: “We have concerns about technology and technology transfer.”
Posted by: Fran | Feb 10 2005 11:57 utc | 8
And in the “How can we save Blair?” column: Prince Charles to marry Camilla.
That should keep pesky Iraq off the front pages.
Wonder if the police in Virginia are going to use that bill to persecute plumbers also?
In Virginia, B, new criminal law and, and I believe most other enactments, go into effect on July 1.
Check out the Ricmond Times-dispatch, Norfolk virginian-Pilot, or good old Pravda on Potomac around then to see what our elected loonies in Virginia have been up to.
Posted by: FlashHarry | Feb 10 2005 13:42 utc | 12
Hell, they not only wanna tell you what to wear, they wanna watch you go to the bathroom.
Fortunately , I’m not, but my brother is on of those whom find it impossible to pee if someone is watching… Federal Court Rules No 4th Amendment In Public Restrooms Guess we better get together a group “Citizens for Free Urination”…lol
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 10 2005 13:46 utc | 13
OMG! Did anybody hear Democracy Now this AM? Amy Goodman while interviewing a guest talked about being singled out by airport security and asked if she would submit to (full body radiation check) being injected w/a low dose radiation test for some such shit….OMG! OMG!…WTF!!!!
Please tell me somebody else hear this…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 10 2005 14:43 utc | 14
Sheeeeesh. I guess we have to stop making fun of West Virginia, huh, FlashHarry? And then there is Del. Carrico
Posted by: beq | Feb 10 2005 16:13 utc | 16
9/11 Report Cites Many Warnings About Hijackings Rice claimed we were totally surprised by 9/11…not so! “In the months before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal aviation officials reviewed dozens of intelligence reports that warned about Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, some of which specifically discussed airline hijackings and suicide operations, according to a previously undisclosed report from the 9/11 commission….
The Bush administration has blocked the public release of the full, classified version of the report for more than five months, officials said, much to the frustration of former commission members who say it provides a critical understanding of the failures of the civil aviation system. The administration provided both the classified report and a declassified, 120-page version to the National Archives two weeks ago and, even with heavy redactions in some areas, the declassified version provides the firmest evidence to date about the warnings that aviation officials received concerning the threat of an attack on airliners and the failure to take steps to deter it.
Among other things, the report says that leaders of the F.A.A. received 52 intelligence reports from their security branch that mentioned Mr. bin Laden or Al Qaeda from April to Sept. 10, 2001. That represented half of all the intelligence summaries in that time.
Five of the intelligence reports specifically mentioned Al Qaeda’s training or capability to conduct hijackings, the report said. Two mentioned suicide operations, although not connected to aviation, the report said.
Worse to come, so says Dante…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 10 2005 16:21 utc | 17
More on Condi: The French Are Charmed and Jarred by ‘Chère Condi’
In an answer to a question from the floor, she told her audience that in 1947 Greece and Turkey had suffered through civil wars. Greece, yes, but Turkey?
“It was a glaring mistake,” said Guillaume Parmentier, director of the French Center on the United States, an independent research organization at the French Institute of International Relations. “She’s smart, yes, but I don’t think she is as knowledgeable as one would expect with a career like hers.”
…
Indeed, at a private breakfast on Wednesday with six French intellectuals at the American ambassador’s residence, Ms. Rice revealed her steely, deeply ideological side.
She shocked at least some of her guests by branding Iran a “totalitarian state,” said four of those who took part. She added that the free world was wrong to accept the Soviet Union on its terms during the cold war and must not make the same mistake now with Iran, they added.
A number of guests challenged her assertion, but Ms. Rice is not the type to back down. She called her characterization of Iran deliberate. A year ago, she said, she would have called Iran’s Islamic Republic authoritarian. But after flawed parliamentary elections last spring that produced a conservative majority, she said, it moved toward totalitarian, a term that historians tend to use restrictively to define violently absolutist regimes that govern through terror.
And on Iraq: `Sistani tsunami’ sweeps away Bush plan
The imminent historic rise of religious Shiite power in Iraq, with its inevitable linkages to Iran, is decidedly not what President George W. Bush had bargained for. In fact, he spent the last 22 months trying to prevent just such an outcome.
Yet, here is his administration sounding sanguine about the sweeping electoral win of the slate blessed by Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. It is saying he won’t establish mullahcracy in Iraq.
It doesn’t know that. It is only hoping so. Only a handful of people know what Sistani really wants.
He won’t allow any American near his home in Najaf, let alone take a phone call from Bush.
The ayatollah does not give speeches, or deliver Friday sermons. He rarely leaves his abode. He issues few statements and fewer fatwas. The latter tend to be metaphysical.
Americans are from one planet, ayatollahs from another. The latter live a simple life, eating mostly rice, yoghurt and honey. Calm, serene and unhurried, they live long. The four I have interviewed or observed at close quarters were in their 80s and 90s, and in fine form.
Posted by: Fran | Feb 10 2005 16:43 utc | 18
B: that’s scary. What I’d like to know is in which way that kind of crap propaganda and big meetings with bad music is meant to be better than the average Nazi rally in the 1930s.
Posted by: CluelessJoe | Feb 10 2005 16:43 utc | 19
b,
House Bill 1981 in Virginia is a much needed piece of good news amidst a depressing season of political destruction.
Hallelujah! More of the same! I can smell tarbaby all over this fight.
Posted by: Citizen | Feb 10 2005 18:27 utc | 21
Two days ago, a South Korean friend gave me the following survey: North Korea not only has the bomb, but has quite a few copies of the bomb, along with the technology to deliver them at long and short range. Missiles with atomic warheads, some based on ships at sea, are targeting South Korea. North Korea, which probably got its technology from the Soviet Union in the ’80’s, has been exporting warheads, some of these to Iran (or so he tells me). American forces in South Korea, fearful of these developments, have been repositioning their bases to the south of the peninsula, in the vicinity of Pusan. Oh yes, and one other thing: since North Korea isn’t very stable right now–there’s a power struggle of some kind working itself out in the military–meaningful negotiations are hard to come by. Over the past year, South Korea has had to suspend its own back-channel contacts with Pyongyang.
Posted by: alabama | Feb 10 2005 18:41 utc | 22
From the “commie behind every tree” department, Moonie Times-style:
Russian Arms Sale To Chavez Irks U.S.
Washington Times
February 10, 2005
By Rowan Scarborough, The Washington Times
The Bush administration has lodged a formal protest with Russia for agreeing to provide the government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez more than 100,000 AK-47 rifles that U.S. officials believe could be used to aid left-wing uprisings in Latin America.
The administration in December sent a secret letter of protest (formally called a demarche) to the Russian Embassy in Washington, according to senior U.S. officials. The officials say the warning was followed up by concerns expressed directly to the Russian defense and foreign ministers.
The protests come at a time when U.S. intelligence reports say that Mr. Chavez is working behind the scenes to prop up left-wing revolutionary movements in the region while retrenching from democratic principles at home.
At a time when the U.S. is propping up right-wing movements in Venezuela! The nerve of those people.
Mr. Chavez is a vocal supporter of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and other revolutionaries, and has encouraged the Iraqi insurgency. U.S. intelligence estimates there are now 15,000 Cuban officials in Venezuela. Caracas claims they are there as part of cultural and professional exchanges, but U.S. officials say they are communist advisers.
…Washington, however, is wary of Mr. Chavez, who calls the United States an imperialistic power that has to be confronted.
The sources say that Mr. Chavez has apparently not gotten the memo officially replacing the phrase “imperialistic” with “freedom-spreading”.
…Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice singled out Venezuela for criticism at her Jan. 18 Senate confirmation hearing.
…At home, Mr. Chavez is planning to start forming militias outside the professional armed forces, U.S. officials say.
The sources say they fear the Russian-provided AK-47s will be used to arm what may become little more than street gangs assigned the task of enforcing loyalty to Mr. Chavez.
“He’s consolidating a dictatorship,” said a senior U.S. official. “It’s a Cuban-style dictatorship. He’s arming loyalists and setting them loose to intimidate people at the city block level.”
Bush Administration officials are reportedly miffed that Venezuela is closer to implementing such a scheme than is their own Homeland Security department.
Mr. Alvarez, the Venezuelan ambassador, said what Washington officials are calling militias are actually new army reserve units.
“It will be under the control of the military,” he said.
The new units are not Washington’s only worry. Mr. Chavez’s rhetoric is increasingly anti-U.S. and pro-revolution. He has further nationalized Venezuela’s oil industry and restricted press freedom.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan complained that “…Mr. Chavez routinely takes softball questions from fake commie-symp reporters rather than face the tough, independent questioning that always characterizes our own press conferences.”
…Beyond diplomacy, however, there are not many options for Washington. Mr. Chavez is democratically elected. And his country’s huge oil reserves make it the No. 4 provider to the United States.
“Chavez has shut off a lot of our options. We’re very susceptible to a shut off of oil by Chavez,” the U.S. official said.
Mr. Chavez has talked of establishing an Al Jazeera-style news network in Venezuela that would reach all of Latin American. Some Pentagon officials considers the Qatar-based Arab-language channel a propaganda arm of al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.
McClellan continued, “We would never allow any domestic channel to function as a propaganda arm – what’s that? The Pentagon did what? Oh. Well, never mind.”
Posted by: OkieByAccident | Feb 10 2005 19:01 utc | 24
Anybody remembering Lt.Col. Tim Ryan?
Time Mag via Rantburg: Hunt for the Bomb Factories
Ryan decides to send a message, a “show of force,” as he calls it. He instructs his engineers to pile the weapons caches in the front yard of House 71. “We got all this stuff in his house, I don’t see any reason why we can’t blow it up,” Ryan says. His Estonian counterpart chuckles. “I don’t mind; it’s not my house,” he says. By day’s end, the message has been delivered repeatedly. Coalition troops destroy two vehicles and another house in acts of retaliation.
Our lead Humvee’s job is to clear a path for us which he does by waving an assault rifle at anyone that gets too close. If that doesn’t get their attention, his favorite weapon seems to be half-liter water bottles. He tosses these like a Nolan Ryan fastball at the windshield of cars that don’t pull to the side of the road quickly enough in his estimation. He actually has a little rack of water bottles mounted inside the turret.
The remaining vehicles in the convoy fly along over 60mph, often swerving to, I assume, prevent someone from accurately targeting us. We’re rarely more than a couple meters from the rear bumper of the vehicle in front of us and it always gives you a jolt to look out the rear window at the front grill of the chase car. Occasionally, you’ll hear the thump, thump, thump of the helicopters as they skim over the top of you. One of the more exciting things to see is one of these helos swoop in ahead of you and block traffic by settling into a hover 6 feet off the highway.
The end effect of all this is that you feel like a VIP, but also very guilty for the impact this must have on the Iraqi people. We only do these trips for things that are considered “Mission Critical” like Quality Assurance visits to the infrastructure plants or to meetings with the Iraqi Ministries. However, are we negating the good we are doing by improving their infrastructure everytime we drive down the road?
Right wing “Culture of Life” vignette # 167:
From the February 7 edition of CNBC’s Kudlow & Cramer:
LAWRENCE KUDLOW (host): We got a couple of seconds before the break when you guys are all going to come back, but, Ann, I just want to give you first whack at this. Eason Jordan, top news executive at CNN — I mean, to me, this is absolutely incredible — this guy says at a big conference in Davos that the U.S. military is deliberately targeting and assassinating American journalists. Huh? He still has a job, huh? You got a take on that?
COULTER: Would that it were so!
KUDLOW: Would what were so?
COULTER: That the American military were targeting journalists.
Posted by: OkieByAccident | Feb 11 2005 1:38 utc | 28
I am still shook up from what I heard this morning about TSA asking Amy Goodman of Democracy Now if she would submit to a low dose radiation injection. I have spent the majority of my day researching government docs on campus for a school project, and could hardly concentrate, I am in total shock over this. I told several friends and class mates and not one believed me. One guy when so far as to call me a liar and a conspiracy nut. Can I ask the moon regulars to see what they can find out about this? Is there anymore Information on it? There has to be. Even with Kate storm whom said she heard it too and her validation of this story I’m still having a hard time believeing what I heard. Complete cognitive dissonance over here… just reeling…
anybody????
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 11 2005 4:06 utc | 29
Noami Klein: Getting the Purple Finger
The Iraqi people gave America the biggest ‘thank you’ in the best way we could have hoped for.” Reading this election analysis from Betsy Hart, a columnist for the Scripps Howard News Service, I found myself thinking about my late grandmother. Half blind and a menace behind the wheel of her Chevrolet, she adamantly refused to surrender her car keys. She was convinced that everywhere she drove (flattening the house pets of Philadelphia along the way) people were waving and smiling at her. “They are so friendly!” We had to break the bad news. “They aren’t waving with their whole hand, Grandma–just with their middle finger.”
So it is with Betsy Hart and the other near-sighted election observers: They think the Iraqi people have finally sent America those long-awaited flowers and candies, when Iraq’s voters just gave them the (purple) finger.
The election results are in: Iraqis voted overwhelmingly to throw out the US-installed government of Iyad Allawi, who refused to ask the United States to leave. A decisive majority voted for the United Iraqi Alliance; the second plank in the UIA platform calls for “a timetable for the withdrawal of the multinational forces from Iraq.”
There are more single-digit messages embedded in the winning coalition’s platform. Some highlights: “Adopting a social security system under which the state guarantees a job for every fit Iraqi…and offers facilities to citizens to build homes.” The UIA also pledges “to write off Iraq’s debts, cancel reparations and use the oil wealth for economic development projects.” In short, Iraqis voted to repudiate the radical free-market policies imposed by former chief US envoy Paul Bremer and locked in by a recent agreement with the International Monetary Fund.
Posted by: Fran | Feb 11 2005 6:55 utc | 30
This is the last one for now, then I have to do some work. This has been mentioned in the press before, but then again ignored – the usual treatment.
Microwaving Iraqis and the Squeak of the Chicken Hawk
Posted by: Fran | Feb 11 2005 7:02 utc | 31
I am wondering when someone will break the story of the huge warehouse in Iraq filled to the rafters with cigarettes and nylon stockings that the troops were supposed to hand out.
Posted by: dan of steele | Feb 11 2005 7:40 utc | 32
Viewpoint: The rise of the American martyr
Not long ago President Bush condemned Saddam Hussein for recruiting Palestinian suicide bombers by offering to pay $25,000 to their families. Last week, Mr. Bush proposed raising the death benefit for U.S. soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq to half a million dollars. When I learned of Mr. Bush’s proposal, I couldn’t help wonder: Will such payouts will create American martyrs?
Posted by: Fran | Feb 11 2005 9:19 utc | 33
dan of steele
When some U.S. Marines first entered Baghdad in early April 2003 they were billeted in a sprawling industrial complex that to their evident delight contained a cigarette factory. As thousands looted outside their base the Marines were busy looting thousands of cases of cigarettes inside (and smashing up offices, office equipment, stealing personal photographs as trophies, the usual thing) so if ever they do try the old cigarette game it will not quite be the same will it?
Posted by: Anonymous | Feb 11 2005 11:00 utc | 34
North Korean propaganda pictures
– always the same methods
Bernhard: Me thinks the trackback got the better of you here. Serjak’s post at Live from Baghdad has been removed – or if not the trackback, Serjak’s insect overlords happened upon his blog. Maybe has it been cached, but I failed to find it with Google.
Posted by: CluelessJoe | Feb 11 2005 11:32 utc | 36
anonymous @ February 11, 2005 06:00 AM
Though I did not know this particular incident of looting I have seen many other instances. I disagree with your premise that the military could not now hand out cigarettes with being seen as scumbags. All you need is the right PR and you can do anything you want. This administration is not bound by reality.
Posted by: dan of steele | Feb 11 2005 12:15 utc | 37
@Clueless – I didn´t trackback, but he was probably linked more often.
Now he says: Note: Our security office has recommended that I delete this post.
It failed Negropontes razor.
Uncle $cam – the Democracy Now transcript is now up
the reference you heard is to small radio frequency identification RFID chips – that transmit identifying info when scanned within a range of several meters – now being used in stores for inventory control – that could be put on id cards – or IMPLANTED IN ONE’S BODY – so one could be identified just by walking within a certain range of a scanner
the good news – if we all got these implants it opens the possibility that the government would always know who and where we are – within range of wherever these scanners are put – airports, government offices, restricted areas, metro stations, buses, public places, etc. etc.
the bad news – see above
Posted by: mistah charley | Feb 11 2005 14:33 utc | 39
THE REAL ID ACT
probably coming soon to a wallet near you – DHS-mandated driver’s license – perhaps including RFID chip
________________________
House approves electronic ID cards
Published: February 10, 2005, 5:46 PM PST
By Declan McCullagh
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
The U.S. House of Representatives approved on Thursday a sweeping set of rules aimed at forcing states to issue all adults federally approved electronic ID cards, including driver’s licenses.
Under the rules, federal employees would reject licenses or identity cards that don’t comply, which could curb Americans’ access to airplanes, trains, national parks, federal courthouses and other areas controlled by the federal government. The bill was approved by a 261-161 vote.
The measure, called the Real ID Act, says that driver’s licenses and other ID cards must include a digital photograph, anticounterfeiting features and undefined “machine-readable technology, with defined minimum data elements” that could include a magnetic strip or RFID tag. The Department of Homeland Security would be charged with drafting the details of the regulation.
Republican politicians argued that the new rules were necessary to thwart terrorists, saying that four of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers possessed valid state-issued driver’s licenses. “When I get on an airplane and someone shows ID, I’d like to be sure they are who they say they are,” said Rep. Tom Davis, a Virginia Republican, during a floor debate that started Wednesday.
States would be required to demand proof of the person’s Social Security number and confirm that number with the Social Security Administration. They would also have to scan in documents showing the person’s date of birth and immigration status, and create a massive store “so that the (scanned) images can be retained in electronic storage in a transferable format” permanently.
Another portion of the bill says that states would be required to link their DMV databases if they wished to receive federal funds. Among the information that must be shared: All data fields printed on drivers’ licenses and identification cards, and complete drivers’ histories, including motor vehicle violations, suspensions and points on licenses.
The Bush administration threw its weight behind the Real ID Act, which has been derided by some conservative and civil liberties groups as tantamount to a national ID card. The White House said in a statement this week that it “strongly supports House passage” of the bill.
Thursday’s vote mostly fell along party lines. About 95 percent of the House Republicans voted for the bill, which had been prepared by the judiciary committee chairman, F. James Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican. More than three-fourths of the House Democrats opposed it.
Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat from Washington, D.C., charged that Republicans were becoming hypocrites by trampling on states’ rights. “I thought the other side of the aisle extols federalism at all times,” Norton said. “Yes, even in hard times, even when you’re dealing with terrorism. So what’s happening now? Why are those who speak up for states whenever it strikes their fancy doing this now?”
Civil libertarians and firearm rights groups condemned the bill before the vote. The American Civil Liberties Union likened the new rules to a “de facto national ID card,” saying that the measure would force “states to deny driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants” and make DMV employees act as agents of the federal immigration service.
Because an ID is required to purchase a firearm from a dealer, Gun Owners of America said the bill amounts to a “bureaucratic back door to implementation of a national ID card.” The group warned that it would “empower the federal government to determine who can get a driver’s license–and under what conditions.”
Posted by: mistah charley | Feb 11 2005 15:18 utc | 40
amy goodman: The security woman said to me: ‘We would like to dose your body with low-level radiation. Can we have your permission, please? And I said, ‘What you are talking about? Is this a joke?’ And she said, ‘No. Can we have your permission? We’ll do a low dose of radiation through your body.’ And I said, ‘Hell, no.’ I said, ‘Would you do this?’ And she said, ‘No.’
there have been several articles about govt plans to use radio telemmetry to monitor border crossings. maybe amy’s encounter is somehow related.
Posted by: b real | Feb 11 2005 15:41 utc | 41
hmmmm.. i could swear i saw some reports from late last year on new border monitoring technology that was separate from rfid technology, but i’m not having any luck now. some concerns that homeland security will force immigrants and tourists to actually implant chips, but passport embeds seem more reasonable at init. really weird though that amy was asked for permission to irradiate her body. sounds like a separate issue from the followup rfid discussion. more like experimentation. or since amy is likely on a list (” I was just at Heathrow airport last weekend and, as usual, I was pulled out of the line”) and a reknown journalist, it could be a disinfo plant, using her position to disseminate a sensational story about what the authorities are doing to civilians at airports which can later be debunked to take focus off what is really going on & discredit criticism. have any other individuals come forth to share the same experience? or was the security agent refering to a body search w/ the hand-held scanner in awkward/confusing terms?
Posted by: b real | Feb 11 2005 16:24 utc | 42
I foresee a good opportunity in Faraday cage wallets: simply put a metal mesh into the wallet and all these things just go away. None of this crap has any value against actual bad guys.
b real,
I think I posted a article about the chip for tourists a while back here at the moon. But I do not remember the source it came from and I do not have the time to search for it.
Posted by: Fran | Feb 11 2005 16:50 utc | 44
Colman: Who said it was targetting the “bad guys”?
The right-wingers are fond of pointing that the Berlin Wall wasn’t build to stop a huge inflow of Westerners wanting to join the Communist bloc. I doubt the main reason for compulsory ID cards and paranoid border security measures is to keep people from *entering* the USA.
Posted by: Clueless Joe | Feb 11 2005 21:25 utc | 45
They say it is aimed at bad guys, at least implicitly. I can’t be arsed sourcing things in detail 22:52 on a Friday.
What upsets me is the EU caving in to the idiot Americans’ demands on this stuff. I hope we’re just picking our fights: the RFID stuff is worse than useless, so not worth fighting over.
Hmm – Pakistan pays tribe al-Qaeda debt
Pakistan says it has paid 32m rupees ($540,000) to help four former wanted tribal militants in South Waziristan settle debts with al-Qaeda.
Military operations chief in the region, Lt Gen Safdar Hussain, said the payments were part of a peace deal signed on Monday with tribesmen.
It is the first time Pakistan has admitted making such payments.
Also on Wednesday, wanted militant Abdullah Mehsud rejected Monday’s peace deal signed by others in his tribe.
So the United States pays Pakistan how many billion in aid per year? And Pakistan pays of tribe leaders? And those tribe leaders use the money to pay off debt to al-Qaeda?
Yes. Sounds reasonable. At least taht scheme is better than Enron. The DO pay their debts.
Rfid chips are obligatory in some countries for pets. They are used to track in children in many places. (Japan, Denmark, etc.) The chips are usually embedded in a plastic bracelet which the child cannot remove. They are are also placed on schoolbags, etc. (Confusing.)
Verichips (for children, the Verikid system) is available in Mexico. SOLUSAT MEDICA (a Mexican Co.) is a database containing medical information pertaining to VERICHIP users, which can be accessed via the Internet.
Verichip
Solusat
Round up, info, news, links:
Cybertime
Children, apparently, love them (from a colleague in Britain, only place I have heard reports about implants vs. tagging.) They associate them with modern technology, super medecine, and body transformation or enhancement (piercing, tatoos, etc.) Real cool.
Posted by: Blackie | Feb 12 2005 0:06 utc | 50
Parents of elementary and middle school students in a small California town are protesting a tracking program their school recently launched, which requires students to wear identification badges embedded with radio frequency, or RFID, chips. School superintendents struck a deal with a local maker of the technology last year to test the system to track attendance and weed out trespassers.
But students and parents, who weren’t told about the RFID chips until they complained, are upset over what they say are surreptitious tactics the school used to implement the program. They also question the ethics of a monetary deal the school made with the company to test and promote its product, using students as guinea pigs. . .
All those old Sci Fi dystopian images of people digging radio tags out of their muscle with a pen knife, trying to fall off the map, with Big Brother’s hounds close on their trail… coming soon?
As to the kids liking them, they’re idiots. Having a tat may be cool — if you’re into injecting toxic dyes under your skin — but having a number tattooed on your forearm is never cool, never has been cool and never will be cool. We’re gonna need some additions to the Bill of Rights, a new Magna Carta, some new ideas about the baseline right of privacy of the individual. Being RFID tracked, unless you’re an habitual violent offender, is way out of line. But of course, we treat all our children nowadays as if they were potential violent offenders — or precious personal property to be kept in a bank vault — or sometimes a mad mixture of both at once.
I have a hypothesis — which I won’t justify now other than to say it comes from contemplating statistics from the Vietnam War — that an imperial war, being a voluntary adventure and not a matter of self-defense, which is carried on as long as necessary (as by the Chinese during 1937-1945, the Vietnamese during 1941-1975, and in Palestine now), will be stopped when the impact of that war reaches 8% of the American population.
By impact I mean that a person directly knows of an individual killed or injured in the war, or an individual has suffered anxiety because they personally knew someone involved in that war. This is the emotionally vulnerable “homefront.” My hypothesis is that when this homefront reaches 8%, or 21.6 million Americans, the war is pressured to an end. Enough people have to care.
Manuel Garcia speculates on what it will take to reduce the comfort level of Amurkans with PNAC’s “generational war.” He concludes sombrely that
Projecting the present Iraq War out to 2013 — a ten year war — with average losses as already seen, we have a 50,000 casualty war with 7000 war dead. This is a 33% casualty war (4.7% fatalities) if pursued with the same 150,000 soldiers. If the war managers choose to keep the casualty rate to that of the Vietnam War, 8%, then 625,000 soldiers will have to serve over the course of the decade. This implies 4 year terms of active duty. The fatality rate would be 1.12%, about half that of the Vietnam War.
I am sure that war actuaries are making much more refined estimates than these, to devise just the right incentives (money) to draw in the soldiers it needs from the poor rural and urban areas of our country. The homefront impact of 625,000 troops is (at 8 per) 5 million, less than 2% of the population. If the government offered a bonus of $100,000 per soldier who completed a four year active duty term, or was killed or wounded in action, the total cost could be up to $62.5B. This is no longer a large number as far as military expenditures go.
If the “8 percent war” hypothesis is valid, then it may be that the Iraq and imperial wars can be carried on without rising to a level of concern to the American public, by buying soldiers out of poverty (like pro sports) to avoid conscription of the middle class, thus keeping the homefront small.
Now, tell me this all has nothing to do with BushCo policies that thrust more and more families into poverty, debt, bankruptcy… More and more young people desperate enough to “take the King’s shilling.” More and more young people for whom there are no jobs, no prospects, no way out but that recruiting station. How long before they start offering military service as an option to the millions of long-term prisoners in our prison-industrial system? “Redeem your good name by joining the Eagles; every legionary will be granted a tract of the conquered lands for his own use, after 20 years of service.”
DeA: The wingnuts are hopeless. Less than a decade ago, they were the first to scream and cry abomination because of course the UN/Bill Clinton was going to put implants into every person, and this was obviously the mark of the Beast, the dreaded 666 bringing the apocalypse.
So, now, these same assholes are promoting this stuff?
What happened? Don’t they realise that they’re worse than hypocrites?
Or do they well realise the paradox? Couldn’t it be that in fact they’re still in the same worldview, but they just changed sides and think working for the Antichrist is a better deal?
BushCo ruining America: I’ve now come to the conclusion that Bush is a genius. He knew since the beginning that the US employment would get down the drain as all the facotries would be shipped to China, and that simply was NO way to avoid it. So, he still has to try to make the US competitive against China. And since Chinese wages are so low, there’s simply no way that they’ll ever be as massive as the US ones, so this is a losing battle for the next decades.
That is, unless the bulk of American people was turned into dirt-poor 3rd worlders who would at long last work for less than the average guy from Sichuan. In which case the US would at long last be more competitive than China, unemployment would decrease, and the economy would start again after years of depression.
It’s just that in order to save the US workforce, Bush has to destroy it first, and for many years.
Manuel Garcia speculates on 50.000 casualties over 13 years? Well, since there’s already been at least 15.000 including 1.500+ deads, in less than 2 years, I have some doubts. And all that, assuming Sadr and Sistani don’t go bonkers when the US tries to stomp on their newly-found influence.
You think I’m a bit snarky and cynical here? Well, maybe it has to do with the latest news, that when you hint at the truth, which is that the US Army considers every non-embedded journalist as an enemy, you’re fired – even when you’re a top dog.
I think I should already begin to make stocks of champagne for when the time of reckoning will come for BushCo, the neo-cons, and when their illegal war of aggression ends in the Middle East, because I intend to celebrate this in a big way.
Posted by: Clueless Joe | Feb 12 2005 1:48 utc | 54
@ DA, Sloth, and CJ:
The parallels with Rome(legions, land in Gaul after 20 years) are weird.
Hope we can derail this insane train before we get to bread and cicuses all around.
Hope it’s possible. But these fools have damaged us economically very badly. The intent may not have been to create another China here, but it’s starting to look like a pretty good facsmile of Mexico where I live. (And I am not criticizing Mexicans or Mexico!)
Not snarking a bit. /NO SNARK/
Posted by: FlashHarry | Feb 12 2005 2:11 utc | 55
New Riverbend: And Life Goes On…
The results won’t really matter when so many people boycotted the elections. No matter what the number say, the reality of the situation is that there are millions of Iraqis who will refuse to submit to an occupation government. After almost two years of occupation, and miserable living conditions, we want our country back.
I do have my moments of weakness though, when I wonder who will be allowed to have power. Politicians are talking about a balance that might arise from a Shia, Kurdish alliance and it makes a lot of sense in theory. In theory, the Kurdish leaders are Sunni and secular and the Shia leaders are, well, they’re not exactly secular. If they get along, things should work out evenly. That looks good on blogs and on paper. Reality is quite different. Reality is that the Kurdish leaders are more concerned about their own autonomy and as long as the Kurdish north remains secular, the rest of Iraq can go up in flames.
Posted by: Fran | Feb 12 2005 7:19 utc | 56
(Riverbend)
They also say that 300 different ballot boxes from all over the country were disqualified (mainly from Mosul) because a large number of the vote ballots had “Saddam” written on them.
Posted by: DM | Feb 12 2005 8:46 utc | 57
Hillarious: White House Seeks Ban on Religious Tea
The appeal from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales argues that a lower court was wrong to allow the Brazil-based O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal to import and use the hoasca tea as part of its religious services.
“The court’s decision has mandated that the federal government open the nation’s borders to the importation, circulation and usage of a mind-altering hallucinogen and threatens to inflict irreparable harm on international cooperation in combating transnational narcotics trafficking,” the filing states.
The church, which has about 140 members in the United States and 8,000 worldwide, said the herbal brew is a central sacrament in its religious practice, which is a blend of Christian beliefs and traditions rooted in the Amazon basin.
But maybe the better word is scary. Basically this Government tells you to be religious, but we tell you how you have to be religious.
Posted by: Fran | Feb 12 2005 9:08 utc | 58
Iranian voices: No War on Iran!
And a Iranian picture comment: Purple Finger
Posted by: Fran | Feb 12 2005 11:56 utc | 59
Link to FlashHarry’s Real ID Act.
This is a LOT scarier than national ID cards – this is the real Big Brother.
Posted by: Jérôme | Feb 12 2005 14:29 utc | 60