Phyrfight Intel

From: Wired

FAIRFAX, Virginia — Early one Sunday morning in 2002, a phone rings in Yu Ling’s Beijing duplex. She’s cleaning upstairs; her son is asleep, while downstairs, her husband, Wang Xiaoning, is on the computer. Wang writes about politics, anonymously e-mailing his online e-journals to a group of Yahoo users. He’s been having problems with his Yahoo service recently. He thinks it’s a technical issue. This is the day he learns he’s wrong.

Wang picks up the phone: “Yes?”

“Are you home?” asks the unfamiliar voice on the other end.

“Yes.”

The line goes dead.

Moments later, government agents swarm through the front door — 10 of them, some in uniform, some not. They take Wang away. They take his computers and disks. They shove an official notice into Yu’s hands, tell her to keep quiet, and leave. This is how it’s done in China. This is how the internet police grab you.

From: Neal Boortz

… A task force appointed by the Mayor has determined that Atlanta needs a cultural investment fund in the amount of at least $10 million that will provide money to artists, arts organizations and what it refers to as “cultural organizations.” The suggestion is that there should be a tax on businesses operating in Atlanta to provide the funds. The story in this morning’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution says that “Many of those who work in the arts in Atlanta said they hope to see some progress on arts funding soon.”

At this point you shouldn’t need a translation of that quote from the AJC. But then again, many of you went to government schools, so I’ll provide that translation for you. Many of the people in the arts community in Atlanta remain frustrated by the fact that Atlanta residents will not voluntarily pay for their art. So, of the Atlanta residents won’t voluntarily buy their art, the government should step in and make them buy the art by seizing their money and transferring that money to artists and arts organizations.

And what about this idea of placing a special tax on Atlanta businesses? What we have here is the arts community taking advantage of the ignorance of our government-educated residents. They know that many people think that if the tax is placed on the businesses this means that the rank and file Atlantans won’t be paying for the art. Sadly, they’re possibly right. Our education is so pathetic that most people can’t noodle out the fact that all taxes paid by businesses are passed on to the consumers of whatever service or goods they sell.

With the new Orb MyCasting software, media geeks can stream music, video, pictures or even youtube.com from their computer to their TV using any network-connected next-gen console.

Every political leader on every issue.

http://www.ontheissues.org

Soldiers that can stay alive with over half of their blood gone? The future of small unit soldiers is being developed by Darpa today.

Wired 15.03: Be More Than You Can Be

From UPI

“Environmentalism should belong in the social sciences,” much like the idea of communism or other “-isms” such as feminism, Klaus said, adding that “environmentalism is a religion” that seeks to reorganize the world order as well as social behavior and value systems worldwide.

I told you so. What a surprise.

From: Wired

“The report indicates abuse of the authority” Congress gave the FBI, said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. “You cannot have people act as free agents on something where they’re going to be delving into your privacy.”

The committee’s top Republican, Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, said the FBI appears to have “badly misused national security letters.” The senator said, “This is, regrettably, part of an ongoing process where the federal authorities are not really sensitive to privacy and go far beyond what we have authorized.”

BSG spoilers, as in Battlestar Galactica. Some nugget on another blog whined that he didnt know that BSG meant Battlestar Galactica. What a frak’n dweeb.

I feel the same way Crystal does about this “Dead? Or Alive?” question and I think TomCat agrees.

From:Crystal

What do you hear TomCat?

According to TorrentFreak, many Britons will be without TV service that they have already paid for because of ongoing disputes between the two major networks. This means they will not be able to watch shows that are currently in the middle of their runs in the UK. Enter the P2P protocol BitTorrent. With BitTorrent and websites that host trackers for American TV shows, savvy Britons have access to episodes that will not air for some time on UK TV. Why pay for two services when you can get all the shows you want plus more via the Internet?

From the Technology Liberation Front:

An Egyptian blogger has been sent to jail for four years for criticizing Islam!

Video of him being taken away.

It must be very “inconvenient” for Al Gore that people insist on debating the merits of his claims. Isn’t this the guy that also claimed to have invented the Internet?

From Best of the Web

Here we have a major American politician who is calling for policies that would impose huge costs on society but appears to be profiting handsomely himself; who is leading an extravagant lifestyle while demanding sacrifices from ordinary people; and who is calling on the media to suppress the views of those with whom he disagrees, while at the same time urging more government regulation in the name of “fairness” to his partisan and ideological allies.

Why is it left to think tanks and bloggers to investigate and expose all this? Why aren’t the mainstream media all over the story? Could it be . . . bias?

more