Category — General

The CIA Cruelty Authorization Act of 2006:
There have been several reports in recent days about drafts of the Bush Administration’s proposed amendments to the War Crimes Act. Now, Slate has published a version of those amendments that reportedly was “sent to Congress” last week. I’m informed that this proposal was, at most, shared with a few Republicans on the Hill, and that it is not the final version. Assuming, however, that this amendment is fairly close to what we will eventually see from the Administration, it is, indeed, a very big deal—but not quite for the reasons that have thus far been stressed in most accounts.

Currently, the federal War Crimes Act provides for criminal sanctions (up to life imprisonment, or even death in extreme cases) for all violations of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.

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I really hope that the congress does not pass this. the recognition of war crimes and the debasement of humanity that is called torture is wrong, even if it does save tens of thousands of lives, because in the end, when you torture someone, and the nation is complicit, people realize their complicity and eventually come to terms with their own horror and the death of their own humanity.

Information Law Institute:
Increasingly, who we are is represented by key bits of information scattered throughout the data-intensive, networked world. Online and off, these core identifiers mediate our sense of self, social interactions, movements through space, and access to goods and services. There is much at stake in designing systems of identification and identity management, deciding who or what will be in control of them, and building in adequate protection for our bits of identity permeating the network.
This symposium will examine critical and controversial issues surrounding socio-technical systems of identity, identifiability and identification. It will showcase emerging scholarship of graduate students at the cutting edge of humanities, social sciences, artists, systems design & engineering, philosophy, law, and policy to work towards a clearer understanding of these complex problems, and build foundations for future collaborative work.

Nuclear war starting in 10 days? – Pravda.Ru:
Political Scientist’s Opinion

Alexander Prohanov, the main editor of ‘Zavtra’ Newspaper:’Apocalypse Tomorrow’

- The pulling of the trigger leading to the tragic chain of events has been done. Syria and Iran will be pulled into the war right after Lebanon. Israeli and American attacks on Iran will lead to the interruption of oil exports into Europe and China. Their economies will suffer. In the conclusion there will be chaos all across Asia.

The detonation device for the new apocalypse has been set off by Americans, obviously. They believe that they have the power and the authority to regulate the world’s chaos. But the U.S. cannot even gain control over its own minor chaos in Latin America. Let us only hope that Russia will remain neutral throughout this universal nightmare.

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yep, we aimed the gun and pull the trigger and looked the other way.

Times of Oman:
Maybe it was those explosive “liquid chemicals” they were planning to smuggle aboard the planes. After all, it’s only 160 years since nitroglycerin was invented. It’s a mere eleven years since Al Qaeda associate Ramzi Yousef plotted to blow up 12 airliners flying across the Pacific at the same time with nitro carried aboard in contact lens solution bottles. Who could have foreseen this? Quick! Bring in new security measures! They really aren’t that stupid. They have been checking liquids that people want to carry aboard flights at airport security checkpoints for years.

There would be no need for drastic new security measures even if the alleged British terrorist ring were still on the loose. This is all hype, designed to frighten the British and American publics into supporting the wars of their deeply unpopular governments (and the war of their Israeli ally as well). Or am I being too cynical? Maybe they’re just stupid. I really don’t know any more.

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the sad thing is that dyer is right and that the herd is still stampeding behind its manipulating leaders.

i certainly hope that no one believes that this makes them feel any safer… it does not make them safer.

Crooked Timber » » Flights of fancy:
On reflection, maybe the ban on carry on luggage won’t be so bad: without a pc, let alone a phone, there need be no guilt about watching some movies on the seat-back video instead of working.
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I wonder if it might be worthwhile to think of these recent changes to flight rules as part of a larger cross-purpose war against cosmopolitanism. terrorism keeps people at home, the flight restrictions keep people at home. the lack of travel certain impinges upon peoples capacity to see the other as self in terms of worldliness….
Making the world more parochial, less worldly through these actions will have grave consequences for future generations. Parents will fear more for their children and that is a different kind of fear than the televisual terror theater. The cutting back on international travel and international education worries me more than than terror because by giving up the cosmopolitan perspective, we are confronted with the binarity of us vs them, which I think is already exacerbated by the whole idea of a ‘homeland’… The u.s. is not a homeland, it is a melting pot, it is where people come to be free. Nazi germany was a motherland/homeland. anyway, as you can tell i think the u.s. and the u.k. are manipulating their senses of nationalism in really problematic ways and I think one way to counter that is through travel, now they are making travel difficult, so what then can we do?

Book Meme:

the Phat Phree -The World:
10: red rover.
Kids just must have been out of ideas when they came up with this game. You literally just run as hard as you can into the opposing team and hope that you are able to break through their in-locked grasp. The game is essentially a self-inflicted clothesline. An early lesson in exploiting the weak, children learned quickly that the best strategy was to determine the most tenuous link, preferably two frail, timid girls, and send your fattest team member careening at them as if there was pie on the other side.

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some classics here….

more on yellow elephants:
A hallmark of this war turned occupation is the lack of real support and sacrifice from the general public. Particularly interesting is the reluctance of able bodied supporters to actually enlist – like Mr Cheney during the Vietnam war, they all seem to have other priorities.

One wonders if there will be a greater need for volunteers if the birthing pains Dr Rice describes turn into something other than sweets and roses. In any event Operation Yellow Elephant identifies the chicken hawk set mostly among college Republicans, The tactics are a bit rough, but the hypocrisy of these conservative elites is deep.
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hypocricy is deep…. deeper than their will to fight for sure.

Cultural Software: A Theory of Ideology released under a Creative Commons license:
Yale University Press has graciously agreed to release an online version of my 1998 book, Cultural Software: A Theory of Ideology, under a Noncommercial Sharealike Creative Commons license.
The book was the first to show how to use the theory of memes in social and political theory. It argues that we can explain ideology as an effect of cultural evolution; instead of viewing ideologies as overarching worldviews, it argues that we can break them down into component parts and mechanisms.
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we need more books like this….

Device Art (article):
Michelle Kasprzak pointed me to this paper by Machiko Kusahara. Some points of interest:

“Device Art is a concept for re-examining art-science-technology relationships both from a contemporary and historical perspective in order to foreground a new aspect of media art. The term “Device Art” may sound obscure, or even self-contradictory, but it is a conscious choice. The concept is a logical

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This seems to be a very interesting paper… I wish i had some more time to work through. it.