the/diseased/republik

Speaker: Putin, Wladimir W. Funktion: President, Russian Federation Nation/ Organisation: Russian Federation Speech at the 43rd Munich Conference on Security Policy 02/10/2007 (The speech was held in Russian. Find the English translation below.) Thank you very much dear Madam Federal Chancellor, Mr Teltschik, ladies and gentlemen! I am truly grateful to be invited to such a representative conference that has assembled politicians, military officials, entrepreneurs and experts from more than 40 nations. This conference’s structure allows me to avoid excessive politeness and the need to speak in roundabout, pleasant but empty diplomatic terms. This conference’s format will allow me to say what I really think about international security problems. And if my comments seem unduly polemical, pointed or inexact to our colleagues, then I would ask you not to get angry with me. After all, this is only a conference. And I hope that after the first two or three minutes of my speech Mr Teltschik w

SAN FRANCISCO (Business 2.0 Magazine) - -- Two years ago, a quadriplegic man started playing video games using his brain as a controller. That may just sound like fun and games for the unfortunate, but really, it spells the beginning of a radical change in how we interact with computers - and business will never be the same. Someday, keyboards and computer mice will be remembered only as medieval-style torture devices for the wrists. All work - emails, spreadsheets, and Google searches - will be performed by mind control. Decoding the brain Nagle was able to accomplish all this because the brain has been greatly demystified in laboratories over the last decade or so. Researchers unlocked the brain patterns for thoughts that represent letters of the alphabet as early as 1999. Now, Cyberkinetics and a host of other companies are working on turning those discoveries into real products. Neurodevices - medical devices that compensate for damage to the brain, nerves, and spinal column - are

Release Date: May 29, 2007 For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary Contact: 202-282-8010 The Department of Homeland Security has developed enhanced security screening procedures for Iraqi refugees applying for resettlement in the U.S. As a first step in fulfilling the Administration's commitment to accept up to 7,000 referrals of the most vulnerable Iraqi refugees – such as persons whose lives may be in jeopardy because they worked for coalition forces – the department is poised to approve the applications of nearly 60 Iraqis. The Departments of Homeland Security and State continue to work closely toward this fiscal year 2007 goal, and the new security screening procedures will facilitate our progress while ensuring that terrorists do not enter this country posing as refugees. These new screening procedures supplement the checks conducted for all refugee applicants who are considered for resettlement in this country. Applicants will not be admitted if doubts arise about

Brain uses both neural 'teacher' and 'tinkerer' networks in learning. While most people need peace and quiet to cram for a test, the brain itself may need noise to learn, a recent MIT study suggests. In experiments with monkeys, the researchers found that neural activities in the brain gradually change, even when nothing new is being learned. "In the same way, learning in the brain has two components--error-correction and noise--so that even though the neural representation keeps changing, the behavior remains fixed. We think the tinkerer, that is the noise, is not merely a nuisance to the teacher but is actually helping the teacher explore new possibilities it wouldn't have considered otherwise."

o the rot within… the time of american hegemony is over. the fractured state of american society and bilateral disfunction of the political apparatus are the main contributing factors. collective guilt, bankrupt corporate ethics and the lack of personal accountability fuel the disease that is killing the amerikan republik. the global neighborhood has caught a whiff of the decay and the buzzards are starting to circle. the potential for increased societal control of a mistrustful and mutually fearing population already divided by class and economics is at hand. fears are carefully and repeatedly created and fed by a mass media who wishes to create a culture of fear, often through the manipulation of words, facts, sources or data, in order to induce certain personal behaviors, justify governmental actions or policies (at home or abroad). a few techniques the fearmonger uses to distract the public’s attention from allegedly more urgent social issues like: * careful selection and omission

"According to a recent poll, nearly four out of every five people believe that oil and gasoline companies have manipulated the supply of gas in order to cause prices to shoot through the roof. Is it still a conspiracy theory if seemingly everyone believes in it?"

WASHINGTON, DC—In the latest in a long series of ominous public pronouncements, the Department of Evil released a statement Monday demanding that all residents of the United States must die. "There shall soon come an accounting in which all will fall before the Grim Reaper as wheat in winter, as lambs under the knife..." said a spokesman... read more | digg story

MSNBC has an update on the six foreign nationals who were arrested for plotting to attack Fort Dix Army base and it looks like they might have been a bunch of bumblers egged on by over-aggressive FBI informants -- leading to speculation that an entrapment defense is upcoming . the might-a-been plotters: "The FBI learned of the alleged plot when the men went to a Circuit City store and asked a clerk to transfer a jihad training video of themselves onto a DVD." the would-be informants: "One of the [accused plotters]... called a Philadelphia police officer in November, saying that he had been approached by someone who was pressuring him to obtain a map of Fort Dix, and that he feared the incident was terrorist-related, according to court documents." one of the informants actions: "He railed against the United States, helped scout out military installations for attack, offered to introduce his comrades to an arms dealer and gave them a list of weapons he could pr

it seems that the FBI has been busy telling state and local police/law-enforcement what defines a terrorist. there have been a few write ups in Blogland and nary a one in Major Media. it seems that "defenders of the constitution" and "Anti-Nuclear/Anti-War" proponents are to be considered terrorists. "Christian's" are suspect because of their belief that the 10 Commandments are God given, Gay/Animal/Enviromental Right's activist have made the list. anyone with a prior conviction for vandalism may be/become a terrorist. i can not say this enough: "anyone who wants you to surrender your freedom (no matter how small) is not looking out for your best interest." that is a fact. explore the PA terror awareness web page and this counterpoint blog . under the these guidelines- are founding father's were terrorists.

thesmokinggun published the affadavit against the Camden 6. it seems that wanting to produce a DVD expressing their religion (DVD showed 10 young men-"shooting assault weapons at a firing range in a militia-like style while calling for jihad and shouting in Arabic 'Allah Akbar' ('God is Great').") the FBI then inserted two undercover guys and then busted them. as i read the papers i became very interested in the footnote 2 that starts at the bottom of the page. not only is the informants credibility called into question, the implications of the DVD maker informing on his customer are scary. are the Camden 6 that ignorant of the Patriot Act and digital media or is a set up.

the NSA is opening a data center in Texas. every Amerikan should be aware of this. The National Security Agency/Central Security Service (NSA/CSS) has identified a facility in San Antonio, Tex., as the site of a data center. Determination for the site was made after a comprehensive evaluation of potential locations nationwide, using input from government organizations (which? FBI, INS, IRS, ATF, DEA,...?), such as the Army Corps of Engineers, and commercial (corporate sponsorship perhaps or collaborators) data center plans. NSA has also engaged other government agencies to pursue the suggestion that Intelligence Community organizations collaborate to determine the potential for shared data (shared data on whom?) center sites. For more information about the NSA/CSS and its national security mission, visit the website, www.nsa.gov . for more detailed information-( cryptome.org )

Barbers warned against Western haircuts | Oddly Enough | Reuters : "TEHRAN (Reuters Life!) - Iranian police have warned barbers against offering Western-style hair cuts or plucking the eyebrows of their male customers, Iranian media said on Sunday. The report by a reformist daily, later confirmed by an Iranian news agency, appeared to be another sign of the authorities cracking down on clothing and other fashion deemed to be against Islamic values. 'Western hair styles ... have been banned,' the newspaper Etemad said in a frontpage headline. It came a week after police launched a crackdown against the growing numbers of young women testing the limits of the law with shorter, brighter and skimpier clothing ahead of the summer months. Under Iran's Islamic Sharia law, imposed after the 1979 revolution, women are obliged to cover their hair and wear long, loose-fitting clothes to disguise their figures. Violators can receive lashes, fines and imprisonment."

Following the success of the W.W.J.D (What would Jesus Do) merchandise, the New York Police Department is reportedley issuing Cops with 'What Would Batman Do' wrist bands. An observer told us that they had been "quietly impressed by the success of Batman in preventing crime", and felt that he was "a very positive role model for the police force."

i have always said that 'GOOGLE is your friend'. now it seems that some weird cousins are at the door. Charles K has compiled a list of specialized (ie ufo, ghosts, etc) search engines. head over and check it out . have one thats not on the list? send it to me!

Check out these Vista concept shots. Just look at the packaging pictured above. Would you ever see that lining the shelves at Best Buy? No. And that's what makes seeing this stuff so enjoyable. Sure, the folder concept is completely space inefficient. And what we can only assume is a pure diamond block case would probably be expensive even for mass production. But my guess is that most consumers would be more likely to impulse buy an OS if it looked like something out of an 80s future movie. << >>

Over on the O'Reilly Network, there's an interesting piece about how Microsoft tried to hire people to contribute to Wikipedia . Not wanting to do the edits directly, they were looking for an intermediary to make edits and corrections favorable to them. Why? According to the article, it was apparently both to let people know that Microsoft will not 'enable death squads with their UUIDs' and also to fight the growing consensus that OOXML contains a useless pile of legacy crap which is unfit for standardization.

jakosc writes@/. : "The Register has a short commentary about a proposed new set of laws of robotics for war robots by John S Canning of the Naval Surface Warfare Centre. Unlike Azimov's three laws of robotics , Canning proposes (pdf) that we should 'Let machines target other machines and let men target men.' Although this sounds OK in principle, 'a robot could decide under Mr Canning's rules, to target a weapon system such as an AK47 for destruction on its own initiative, requiring no permission from a human. If the person holding it was thereby killed, that would be collateral damage and the killer droid would be in the clear.'"

...and replace it with the old Soviet flag. "Comrades, we have another proposal about changing the flag," Putin tells his advisors, "but this one is quite a bit more attractive, and I think we should consider it. But first, tell me--how much time do we have left on the current flag contract with Coca-Cola?" There are two truths in this joke: One--under Putin, the personal financial interests of the state apparatchiki have become completely inbred with the national interest. The entirety of state-owned and controlled enterprises are run by and for the benefit of the cabal around Putin--a collection of former KGB colleagues, St. Petersburg lawyers, and other political cronies. This band of comrades has managed to place all of the large money-making industries under their control--so much so that the thought of losing their grip when the Russian president's second term ends next year is a source of rising anxiety for his inner circle. read more>>>

Postdialectic libertarianism in the works of Rushdie Steven M. Stryker, esq. Department of Sociolinguistics, Miskatonic University, Waukegan, Il 1. Rushdie and postdialectic libertarianism If one examines capitalist theory, one is faced with a choice: either reject submodernist dialectic theory or conclude that the purpose of the participant is deconstruction, but only if Baudrillard’s critique of objectivism is valid; if that is not the case, expression is created by the masses. Therefore, Bataille uses the term ‘postdialectic libertarianism’ to denote the difference between class and consciousness. “ Class is meaningless,” says Lacan; however, according to Tilton [1] , it is not so much class that is meaningless, but rather the rubicon, and subsequent failure, of class. The characteristic theme of von Ludwig’s [2] model of dialectic capitalism is the fatal flaw, and therefore the futility, of subcapitalist language. In a sense, if objectivism holds, we have to choose betw

...the rot within the time of american hegemony is over. the fractured state of american society and bilateral disfunction of the political apparatus are the main contributing factors. collective guilt, bankrupt corporate ethics and the lack of personal accountability fuel the disease that is killing the amerikan republik. the global neighborhood has caught a whiff of the decay and the buzzards are starting to circle. the potential for increased societal control of a mistrustful and mutually fearing population already divided by class and economics is at hand. fears are carefully and repeatedly created and fed by a mass media who wishes to create a culture of fear, often through the manipulation of words, facts, sources or data, in order to induce certain personal behaviors, justify governmental actions or policies (at home or abroad). a few techniques the fearmonger uses to distract the public's attention from allegedly more urgent social issues like: * careful selection and o