The lay of the land . . .

THE ORGANS OF STATE SECURITY: Stalin would only wish the KGB could've had the kind of reach that today's American security systems provide. SURVEILLANCE IN 'THE HOMELAND' is a site that's a partnership between TRUTHOUT and ACLU Massachusetts. They are very concerned citizens.

Ten years after the devastating attacks on New York and Washington, the fundamental promises of American democracy are hanging by a thin thread. Promoted by a culture of war and fear, the US government has steadily chipped away at those legal protections that enabled 'we the people' to rule ourselves. "Ten Years Later: Surveillance in the Homeland" charts the course of this shift, exposing the rapid advent of a technologically advanced surveillance state in the shadows of the Twin Towers.

• • • •

"In addition to massive surveillance, assassinations and dirty tricks "by any means necessary" included the creation of National Security Agency (NSA) "watch lists" of Americans ranging "from members of radical political groups, to celebrities, to ordinary citizens involved in protests against their government," with names submitted by the FBI, Secret Service, military, CIA, and Defense Intelligence Agency.

The secret lists, which included people whose activities "may result in civil disturbances or otherwise subvert the national security of the US," were used by the NSA to extract information of "intelligence value" from its stream of intercepted communications."

Tailgunner Joe, a cool dude.

What really pisses me off is that this is a resurgence of the bigoted lunacy of 'Tailgunner Joe' McCarthy's paranoia of sixty years ago. The message hysterically presented by the American Right hasn't changed much, except that Commies have been replaced by Muslims and Mexicans: the M&M's of cynicism and bigotry in current American politics.

Bizarro . . .

DAN PIRARO DRAWS BIZARRO. He has a delightful site. A real mensch. Bunnyville Pie Factory, indeed. The Green Monster truck?

Back in the fifties, there was a Green Monster dragster, owned and operated by Art Arfons. More power is good, so Art built a chassis around a 1,700-cube, 28-litre V-12 WW2 Allison aircraft engine, at a time when running a 7-litre-size V-8 like a 392 Chryco Hemi or a 430 Lincoln ('59 NHRA champ) was state-of-the-art. In 1959-60, the world of specialty parts was just developing, 1959 was the year they reached 150 mph in the quarter, which was hot shit at the time. Today, that 392 Hemi has morphed into a Keith Black improved copy of the pushrod Chrysler that puts out an estimated 4,000+ hp for maybe 5 seconds, total. The trip down the 1/4 mile currently traps at 3.8 seconds and 327 mph or 525 kph, during which, the engine turns roughly 1,000 times. To do that, the fuel line is as thick as your wrist.

Sometimes, the rabbit gets lucky . . .

CAP'N CRUNCH. He won't be purse snatching any more, methinks. Amazing video, too bad there's no sound. Violence against women, children, anybody (weaker men get targeted too), remains an eternal cultural blight, diminishing with glacial speed. Once had a student who had survived being stabbed 70+ times. The point is, especially if you are female, unless you were so ugly as a child your parents had to tie a pork chop around your neck to get the dog to play with you, learning how to fight for real is a depressingly desirable skill. The particular style is unimportant, quality of instruction (access to 1-on-1 instruction as needed) and full-contact sparring are. Without the quality, you won't stay at it.

Goodwill . . .

The wife has been missing a week now.

Police said to prepare for the worst.

So, I went to the thrift shop to get all of her clothes back.

Aryan neck-biters . . .

THE ISRAELIS ARE NOT HAPPY, because some 7-11's in Taiwan were selling stuff with what appears to be Adolf Hitler as a vampire. Really. According to Cyriaque (great moniker) Lamar at io9, "Vampire Hitler banned from Taiwanese 7-Elevens". Apparently, Asians are not as conscious of the odious aspects of der Grösser Aryan as the Israelis would wish. A decade ago, according to Laurence Eyton at the Asia Times, ol' Adolf was even chosen for politicking:

That young people tend to be more liberal than their parents is probably a truism. That liberal-leaning political parties should therefore assiduously court the votes of young people is simply common sense. But Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has chosen a rather strange new icon in its campaign for the youth vote in legislative elections this December - Adolf Hitler. Cases of cross-cultural misunderstanding rarely come richer than this.

But as Cyriaque notes, it could be sillier, like a Bin Laden zombie movie, with the renowned actor, Lorem Ipsum, himself. Now, that's silly. Maybe they'll put out a fatwa on poor ol' Lorem, wherever he might be; Wiki isn't too sure, as the page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorem_Ipsum indicates.

Brains . . .

WHILE WE WAIT ON THE US AND ISRAEL TO SCREW-UP, here's a fine little article from the New Scientist by David Robson, "A brief history of the brain". It's a good overview of how the brain evolved from single-cell creatures.

IT IS 30,000 years ago. A man enters a narrow cave in what is now the south of France. By the flickering light of a tallow lamp, he eases his way through to the furthest chamber. On one of the stone overhangs, he sketches in charcoal a picture of the head of a bison looming above a woman's naked body.

In 1933, Pablo Picasso creates a strikingly similar image, called Minotaur Assaulting Girl.

That two artists, separated by 30 millennia, should produce such similar work seems astonishing. But perhaps we shouldn't be too surprised. Anatomically at least, our brains differ little from those of the people who painted the walls of the Chauvet cave all those years ago. Their art, part of the "creative explosion" of that time, is further evidence that they had brains just like ours.

How did we acquire our beautiful brains? How did the savage struggle for survival produce such an extraordinary object? This is a difficult question to answer, not least because brains do not fossilise. Thanks to the latest technologies, though, we can now trace the brain's evolution in unprecedented detail, from a time before the very first nerve cells right up to the age of cave art and cubism.

Ah, cave art to Cubism. A fine start on the path to Starfleet graphics. As Buzz would say, "To infinity ... and beyond!"

Simon's Cat . . .

IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN SIMON'S CAT, or if it's been a while, enjoy. Think of it as a Stevie antidote. Love that puddy-tat.

Reading comprehension . . .

WORDS MEAN DIFFERENT THINGS TO DIFFERENT PEOPLE, and sometimes, comprehension gets lost in the reptilian knee-jerk. According to Charlie Jane Anders at io9, University of Wisconsin-Stout theater professor James Miller put a poster on his office door, showing the likeness of Captain Malcolm "Mal" Reynolds, and one of Mal's many fine quotes from Joss Whedon's Firefly.

And somebody with a shoe-size IQ got upset.

And this poster, with its reference killing, caused such a stir, the campus police were called in to tear it down. And Miller was warned that any further such posters would be deemed "disorderly conduct" and there might be criminal charges.

Charlie concludes:

In case it's not clear, part of what's so great about that quote is that it doesn't endorse wanton killing. It actually says that killing unarmed people is wrong, which is a good stance to take.

The upset becomes more ridiculous when you ponder that this is a theater arts school, and the Firefly series was/is a delightful inspiration, along with its movie sequel, Serenity, with the awesome River Tam. However, the sanctimonious pecksniffs are eternal. As is the theater's fascination with aspects of war, because = duh = it's great DRAMA. As Willie wrote in Big Julie, in 1601:

Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war;
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial.

Seems that a lot of playwrights love that violence thing.

Always liked Joss Whedon's attention to detail. Notice Summer Glau's wheel-kick from Serenity? See how she has her torso cranked into the kick? Beautiful form, that'll loosen a few fillings. Also seen in Buffy, as Sarah Michelle Gellar does her thing with fine style, just turn the sound off and see.

dickhead Comes to Vancouver . . . .

dickhead cheney came to The Vancouver Club tonight to promote his book.

Of course I participated to see Vancouverites welcome him in style.

To the best of my knowledge, he signed no autographs for the crowd outside the facility . . . .

Sheep look up . . .

BACK IN THE 1990's there was a local Toronto band called "Sheep Look Up", always loved that name. Well, now there's an interesting web site to help keep track of orbiting stuff. REAL TIME SATELLITE TRACKING is a fascinating site that lists most of the orbiting satellites, military and civilian. The map above is a screen capture of a real-time plot of a Chinese spy satellite, Yaogan 10.

Launch date: August 9, 2010
Source: People's Republic of China (PRC)
Comments: YAOGAN 10 is a secret Chinese reconnaissance satellite. The state-run Xinhua news agency reported Yaogan 10 will conduct scientific experiments, carry out land surveys, estimate crop yields and help respond to natural disasters. But the Yaogan satellite is likely a military asset with a synthetic aperture radar system designed to observe locations in all weather and lighting conditions. Observers believe the Yaogan series, which began launching in 2006, is a new fleet of high-resolution optical and radar reconaissance satellites. Alternating launches from Taiyuan and the Jiuquan space base in northwestern China have orbited radar and electro-optical spy satellites. The most recent Yaogan launch in March included three spacecraft that are believed to be naval observation satellites. China announced Monday's launch about 24 hours in advance, a typical policy for most Chinese military payloads.

Check out the OTV-2 (aka USA 226) flight tracks. It's not your normal military satellite. It's 'deep black', an unmanned space plane with remarkable ability to change orbit, that has the Chinese and the Russians really worried, because they are years away from developing anything similar. Just check the welds and general fabrication levels of Soyuz and Shenzhou if you ever get a chance to see one of 'em up close and personal. Reminds me of the fabrication levels of WW2 T-34's. Woof.

Launch date: March 5, 2011
Source: United States (US)
Comments: The launch marks the start of the X-37 B programme's second space mission. The air force's other X-37B plane, known as OTV-1 , returned to Earth in December 2010 after a similarly mysterious seven-month maiden mission. This is a classified mission.

Bizarro . . .

Bizarro

A tranche of creativity . . .

OF OTTO ROHWEDDER'S invention, it could not be said, “This is the greatest invention since sliced bread!” Why? Because Otto invented sliced bread, back in 1928. Really: U.S. Patent 1867377. By 1933, only five years after its introduction, American bakeries were turning out more sliced than unsliced bread.

Location, location, location . . .

WHILE THE US SCREWS UP ON PALESTINE, it appears that the Pentagon is continuing its pilotless aircraft (drone) program and expanding into the Indian Ocean. According to WIRED's David Axe,

Washington is quietly setting up at least two new East African drone bases, plus one on the Arabian Peninsula, to support the expanding U.S. shadow war against Islamic militants in Somalia and Yemen. An apparently new facility has been built in Ethiopia. In the island nation of Seychelles, a defunct airfield is being reactivated. A third base is being set up in or near Yemen.

The news, first reported by The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, should come as no surprise to close observers of America’s shadow war on the borders of the Indian Ocean. But the base expansion could be met with outrage by the people most directly affected, especially Africans themselves. For years, Washington has insisted that it wouldn’t build new bases in Africa.

And that's why they are setting up in the Seychelles, in case mainland operations prove difficult. That's the "A" on the map below. The Reaper, shown above, can cover a circle roughly 2,000 km in diameter, and other RPV's have longer range. It's a major merchant marine area with local, coastal traffic and international carriers, with increasing interest and presence of players like India and China which is a major reason the US wants to keep an eye on things with more than satellites.

It is curious to see how history repeats: a hundred years ago, the Royal Navy kept a world-wide network of coaling stations for the replenishment of the fleet; today, the Americans are building a world-wide network of surveillance stations. Adm. Alfred Thayer Mahan would be so pleased. As I have mentioned before, this is technology that we need for the Arctic, for patrol and surveillance: you lose an RPV up over the Arctic ocean, it's only money, no pilot and crew members to worry about. Beats toasted subs.

The F-36?

ACTUALLY, ROWLAND EMETT'S S.S. Pussiewillow II, a prized part of the Smithsonian. A long, long time ago, the Park Plaza in Toronto had a nice little bar featuring one of his sculptures whirring away, a man-in-the-moon dustman. The creator of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, below, with his Lunacycle.

K.I.S.S.

Delightfully simple.

Funny money . . .

IT APPEARS SOMEONE at the Canadian Mint has a sense of humour. Really. Only $24.95 CAD. The Sasquatch is cool. Then there's the latest Liz on our slugs . . . ewww.

Maybe . . .

WHEN THERE'S THIS MUCH DOO-DOO, there's got to be a pony around someplace. I'm not a conspiracy wacko, but there are way, way too many unanswered questions, kinda like the Warren Commission, the Magic Bullet and the Grassy Knoll.

Play for progress . . .

A screengrab of online protein-folding game, Foldit

THE REGISTER has a positive report on an aspect of the effort to develop an effective HIV vaccine. According to Anna Leach's article, "Online gamers strike major blow in battle against AIDS", non-science types have been of great assistance in the development of proteonomic science, the science of protein chemistry, which is the next great medical revolution. If proteonomics were compared to the history of flight, currently, we are at WW1-era level of competence.

Why should you care? Well, besides the warm, fuzzy idea of an HIV vaccine, those of you under thirty will live long enough to see proteonomics really take hold as therapy, with the benefit of treatment without the ghastly side-effects of pill-medicine. Needless to say, Big Pharma are concerned — especially when a bunch of gamers can provide the key to solving sumbitch-difficult analysis.

A bunch of gamers have untangled the structure of a key protein in the virus that causes AIDS, a mystery that has left scientists stumped for decades.

It took just three weeks for players of online game Foldit to predict an accurate model for the protein – a type of enzyme called a retroviral protease that has a critical role in how the HI virus grows and spreads.

The game Foldit was specially designed to help work out the structure of proteins. It combines computer intelligence with human spatial abilities by asking players to tweak and tug 3D models, a task that computers find hard to do.

The gamers – most of whom have no background in biochemistry – generated models good enough for the researchers to refine and, within a few days, determine the enzyme's structure. In the research published yesterday in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, lead authors biochemists Firas Khatib and Frank DiMaio gave gamers equal billing with the rest of their biochemist co-authors.

Maybe there's an alternative to Angry Birds?

Them what has, gets . . .

POVERTY ABOUNDS in the Home of the Brave and the Land of the Free, as this Doonesbury oeuvre illustrates. Consciousness of this problem has even reached the Indian press, as Sudheendra Kulkarni's article "Poverty in America", posted at indianexpress.com discusses the ramifications.

New York: People in India have traditionally viewed the United States of America as a synonym for prosperity. The allure of the American Dream had made many educated and aspiring Indians believe that it was a land of ever-expanding opportunities for wealth creation. The dream survived for several decades. It cannot any longer.

America is getting poorer. And it’s official. The US Census Bureau reported on Tuesday that joblessness and economic stagnation have pushed as many as 46.2 million—almost one in six Americans—below poverty line. Last year alone, the number of those living in poverty swelled by 2.6 million, the largest increase seen since the government began calculating poverty figures in 1959. The worst affected are children. Nearly one in four of those under 18 years are now living in poverty. Over 20 million American children depend on school meal programmes to escape hunger.

• • • •

Of course, the poor in America do not suffer the same kind of deprivation as the poor in India. US poverty line means an income of $11,139 for one person and $22,314 for a family of four. Convert that into rupees, and one is tempted to think that people with so much income cannot really be considered poor. Many poor families in America have air-conditioning, microwaves, cable or satellite TV, etc. However, measured on the basis of their access to three critical requirements of life—food, education and healthcare—their pain becomes palpable. One in six Americans does not have enough food to eat, and lives on food stamps. Fifty million Americans do not have any health insurance. For such people, a single incidence of major illness could easily wreck their finances. Privately run schools, colleges and universities in America are the envy of the world. However, they are so expensive that poor students cannot even dream of going to these institutions. Scholarships are getting harder to get. Meanwhile, as in India, the quality of education in government-funded schools is so poor that students from low-income families cannot compete with their rich counterparts in the market for high-paying jobs.

• • • •

America will do itself and the world a lot of good by redefining the path and purpose of economic growth. Specifically, it should move away from its consumerism-driven, debt-enhancing, utterly unsustainable and spiritually impoverishing growth model to one that is savings-driven and need-based. In making this transition, it will certainly undergo much pain.

Progressive sites are aware of these challenges; they are not new, but it is interesting to read a 3rd world viewpoint of American social discord and economic problems. Pain is weakness leaving the body, they say.

That's a raptor . . .

Kissy the Kestrel

WOW: no foolin' — watch the last 2 seconds carefully. 'Checkers' the owl, 1000fps 1920x1080 resolution. Shot by SlowMo. Apparently, 'Checkers' is to be found at the Turberry Woods Owl and Bird Sanctuary, which proclaims to offer a unique collection of over 90 birds of prey including eagles, hawks, falcons, owls and more unusual species. Turbary Woods Owl & Bird of Prey Sanctuary is based in Preston, Lancashire. Neat site, check it out.