The Chinese earthquake in Sichuan Province (with an epicenter about 90km away from Chengdu) became personal today while talking to a Chinese staffer today. I shared with her some of the observed tactics I’ve seen regarding technology and disasters - such as use of IM and SMS to reach people.
It appears that the internet is doing a fine job of keeping people connected and informed, as it had during 9/11, the Madrid and London bombings, the 2005 Tsunami, and the Virginia Tech Shootings.
First, to get this out of the way, Hillary clearly ‘won’ (please note that I am an Obama supporter) the Philadelphia Democratic debate which took place at the National Constitution Center last night (Wednesday, 4/17/2008) .
Mukasey blubbers about how a missed phone call from a 9/11 Hijacker, if intercepted, could have stopped 9/11. Hamilton refutes this by essentially saying this is important, yet was not shared with the 9/11 Commission, implying one of three things:
Mukasey was making it up for dramatic appeal.
He was repeating something heard elsewhere, believing it to be true.
Somehow, something quite important was suppressed from the 9/11 Commision.
There an interesting tale coming out of Texas [NPR]:
Faster than a speeding bullet — and bigger than a Wal-Mart.
That’s how residents near the west Texas town of Stephenville described an object they spotted in the sky one night last week.
Dozens of people — including a pilot and a police officer — said a UFO hovered over the farming community for about five minutes last Tuesday before streaking away into the night sky.
Pilot Steve Allen saw the object when he was out clearing brush off a hilltop near the town of Selden. Allen described the unidentified object as being an enormous aircraft with flashing strobe lights — and it was totally silent.
Brian Tierney, in a Philly Mag interview called Press Lords 2.0 laid out his vision for Philly.com, one where it became a MySpace with User Generated Content (UCG) including those wacky Mentos-and-Coke videos, along with online content created by those in his employ in the analog properties (ie. the papers).
Come 12/17, my life is going to get considerably more noisy.
It is on this date that the FAA will change flight plans allowing departing aircraft from Philadelphia International by flying west over residential Delaware County as opposed to flight plans that take flights north or south over the Delaware River and largely industrial areas.
The FAA is stating that this aerial land grab (remember, the county may own the majority of the land the airport sits on, but does not own the skies) is necessary to avert gridlock on the tarmac.
Presidents are incredibly tight-lipped about the contents of their PDBs, or Presidential Daily Briefings. Very few of them have ever seen the light of day via FOIA request and subsequent declassification, with very few exceptions. The most recent and notorious example was that of President Bush's August 6, 2001 PDB, pre-9/11, which was titled "Bin Laden determined to strike US", detailing various avenues and methods of attack. In Scooter Libby's obstruction case, the defense attempted to gain access to PDB-related documents, hoping to use a greymail defense - one that was only partially effective .
The Nixon library just released a bundle of documents, as reported by the Federation of American Scientists at the Secrecy News blog , including some that shed insight on the PDB process, specifically indicating that PDB's are often contain 'intelligence' from newspapers and other journalistic resources.
As for the selection process that determines what to include in the PDB, Mr. Marshall wrote in his Top Secret Codeword report, "It is derived… to a large extent, I believe, from a sense of what's timely as judged from the New York Times, press, and wire service coverage."
This is particularly troubling, given allegations of partisanship and declining journalistic standards, and especially as there are no safeguards in place to prevent a bad-actor from planting a story to advance the agenda of a group, nation, corporation, or individual. Who can tell if the same processes are in place today? We've heard that 'chatter' from blogs has even made it to the PDBs. And it's not as though this administration has ever indicated that they wouldn't just pay for the news they want.
As a hypothetical, Dick Cheney was the firewall to George W. Bush in the lead-up to the Iraq war. The neocons are well connected through the press and various think tanks - for example, Judith Miller stenography towards advancing their goals. When biased reporting, originating from neocon corners and con-men, get laundered in the newspapers, and then get legitimized as actionable intelligence by our government, the consequences are much more dear than journalistic integrity.
Among the general population, there seems to be no question over immunity for the telecoms. Either the public is unaware of the scope of the story or they believe - erroneously - that any domestic spying undertaken has actually kept us safer and not diminished our rights, or even inconvenienced us.
Knowledgeable readers have been following this since the Mark Klein, an AT&T whistleblower, broke the story broke nearly two years ago. To briefly surmise, the ENTIRE internet passes through the NSA. They grab huge chunks of it - your emails, Amazon purchases, credit card transaction, web browsing, instant messages, Facebook stalking - and then winnow it down to find what they are looking for. The presumption is that everyone could be guilty, and that we don't need probable cause to monitor communications and go on fishing expeditions.
Even worse still, much of that actionable intelligence is no longer processed and disseminated by Federal employees, who behavior is governed by law, legislation, and the threat of losing a well-paying government job, but rather outsourced to private industry, outside of Congressional oversite.
The President's call for immunity hints at the 'alleged' law breaking that industry 'might' have done in 'cooperating' with law enforcement, promising to veto legislation that does not tender complete retroactive immunity to the industry, all the way back to September 11th, 2001 (Which is interesting, since they started their efforts on 2/27/2007). He uses "complicated language" as reported by Crooks and Liars:
“When Congress returns in September the Intelligence committees and leaders in both parties will need to complete work on the comprehensive reforms requested by Director McConnell, including the important issue of providing meaningful liability protection to those who are alleged to have assisted our Nation following the attacks of September 11, 2001[.]”
It's very difficult to wrap your head around the technology and legal concepts surrounding the issue. Fortunately, Senator Chris Dodd, the first Presidential candidate willing to go to the mat over telecomm immunity, has posted this short video with Klein breaking down the issue [via EFF]:
Updated Again: I'd be remiss not to point out that the starting point for these allegations came the paragon of Fair and Balanced Reporting, FOXNEWS, as reported by Roger Friedman:
Alas, there’s a hitch: Radio will not play "Magic." In fact, sources tell me that Clear Channel has sent an edict to its classic rock stations not to play tracks from "Magic." But it’s OK to play old Springsteen tracks such as "Dancing in the Dark," "Born to Run" and "Born in the USA."
[…]
Clear Channel seems to have sent a clear message to other radio outlets that at age 58, Springsteen simply is too old to be played on rock stations. This completely absurd notion is one of many ways Clear Channel has done more to destroy the music business than downloading over the last 10 years. It’s certainly what’s helped create satellite radio, where Springsteen is a staple and even has his own channel on Sirius.
It’s not just Springsteen. There is no sign at major radio stations of new albums by John Fogerty or Annie Lennox, either. The same stations that should be playing Santana’s new singles with Chad Kroeger or Tina Turner are avoiding them, too.
Updated: I've recently received an email from 104.5 management stating that this is most-definitely NOT-TRUE and that they have even been offering downloads of Springsteen.
I saw this at Down with Tyranny last night and again via Attytoodthis morning. Pro GOP-radio outlet Clear Channel has allegedly blacklisted Bruce Springsteen as being "too old" for their demographics. Much like with the Dixie Chicks in 2004, this probably has more to do with pleasing the Strong Daddies of the GOP who will continue to allow more media consolidation than it is out-and-out corporate censorship. Of course, if you're a wingnut who has deeply internalized the conservative ideology and are reacting to your lizard-brain's fight, flight, or flee instinct to everyone of the failures of the last six-years, I can certainly see how you wouldn't want a mainstream guitar-slinger pointing out the obvious, with lyrics like these, from azlyrics:
Who'll be the last to die for a mistake The last to die for a mistake Whose blood will spill, whose heart will break Who'll be the last to die for a mistake
The wise men were all fools What to do
The sun sets in flames as the city burns Another day gone down as the night turns And I hold you here in my heart As things fall apart
The local Clear Channel owned stations are WDAS (105.3), WIOQ (102.1), WISX (106.1), WRFF (104.5), WUBA (1480 AM), and WUSL (99.0). The only station that would conceivably play Springsteen is 104.5 FM.
An email sent to their request line (email) and to General Manager Manuel Rodriguez (email) has not been returned or replied to as of yet.
And as a privately-owned, publicly-traded entity, Clear Channel is well within their right to program as they see fit. You, as a listener and consumer, also have the right to listen to someone else and inform their advertisers of your displeasure.
The keystone of their plan may be that of Open Social implementing a bundle of open API (application programing interfaces) for interoperability between several networking platforms (such as Marc Andreeson's Ning, LinkedIn, Hi5, Friendster) and related services (such as iLike, Plaxo, and Slide). This new platform, codenamed "Maka-Maka" as reported by TechCrunch (more links via Buzzfeed) will tie these services together and more importantly, as stated by GigaOm, provide a common authoring language to make application development easier.
Small problem there, Glenn - the majority of those in the affected zipcodes who are politically active and donate money to campaigns are narrowly Republican ($1,891,193 (R) versus $1,801,191 (D)). I guess Glenn is lucky that they aren't able to receive mail or watch their cable-TV since they are now likely homeless.
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
