RE: Five questions non-Muslims would like answered - Los Angeles Times

I have been wondering about many of these same questions for a while now ....
Five questions non-Muslims would like answered - Los Angeles Times

I would add.

How can killing neighbors and families - children no less - go without such an outcry by the victims families - muslims themselves? I'm not referring to Jordan, I'm referring to the murders (aka suicide bombings) in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Palestine.

If it is commonly known by muslims that there are bad hadiths in the koran, then why not rewrite it like the christians have done more or less regularly with the bible (translations they call them).

Why don't muslims take back their faith from those who seek to corrupt it? I'm not talking about the infidels - the non believers, I am referring to those who call themselves muslim leaders and incite violence and murder. Aren't there warnings in the koran about false prophets?

That's all I could come up with for now.

Another suicide bomber

Here's an idea. Instead of publishing the name of a suicide bomber why not omit that information from all news reports? Why is every suicide bomber 'honored' with macabre fame? Every suicide bomber has their name, age and nationality published, yet the victims are usually listed in a group - a number. If you celebrate life, then why do you accept the dead victims being lumped together as a number? Why do you accept mass murderer's becoming 'celebrities' amongst their own with their names annotated in history?

If you get into the psyche of these beings, it's obvious that part of their motivation has to do with 'going down in history'. Would there be as many suicide bombers if their names were never known? Some die hards would still perform this heinous crime, but I suspect many more would not since their deeds could never be authenticated in published reports. Without this authentication, who would believe these grotesque memorializations? Without believers, who would follow?

Let's reserve the publishing of names to the victims, not the evildoers. Let's stop glorifying these abominations and let them die anonymously and alone.

Halliburton Watch

Halliburton Watch
has a great link about preferential treatment of Halliburton with respect to the billions of our tax dollars being thrown at Cheney's company. In fact the democrats released a report this past summer which has received almost no coverage about the billions Cheney's company has enjoyed. Where are all the republicans who decry government spending as wasteful - not a peep is heard.

After all it's only 1.4 billion so far and counting - that doesn't include the tab for the contracts Halliburton's Kellog,Brown and Root subsidiary has won (no compete again - what else) for Katrina rebuilding (1) and (2). Forget anyone in the DoD/Army or this Republican controlled Congress fixing it, as you will be either demoted or fired.

I guess that's why we're over there for Operation Iraqi Liberation.

Treaty on the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations

Here is the content of the letter I am sending to my congressman about the proposed Treaty thanks to EFF for it's template.

---
As a constituent who cares about our country's changing telecommunications and media landscape, I'm writing to express my concern about the impact of the proposed "Treaty on the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations" that the US delegation is pursuing at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

This treaty would create a brand-new layer of exclusive rights for video and audio broadcasters and cablecasters. It gives them 50 years of control over content that they merely broadcast and do not create, on top of any existing rights. That means the treaty could allow broadcasters and cablecasters to stop people from accessing public domain and freely licensed material. The treaty also includes provisions to allow broadcasters to control how the broadcast is played or played back. What's worse, the US delegation wants to extend these rights to webcasters -- meaning that any webcaster that feeds any combination of images and sounds through a web server will suddenly accrue copyright-like rights to the material, with no creative input whatsoever.

Webcasts are already being displayed in Internet advertising. I recall you are one who has campaigned on family values. Imagine discovering your child watching objectionable content that you could not disable simply because they had browsed an approved site where an advertisement linked to the webcast was displayed. With this new treaty the incentive is strong for all advertisers to use webcasts, therefore it will happen.

Likewise new technologies like Ajax will allow webcasts to be displayed on computers without installing an application. The only defense against automatic javascript, java, and other content right now are browsers and their extensions. These extensions/features allow users to select which websites are allowed to display or execute content of a certain type. Browsers capable of such control are Mozilla Firefox, Opera and Internet Explorer. Under the treaty those technologies would be forbidden¹.

Now here is where the law of unintended consequences² rears its ugly head -- the spyware purveyors will be the first to use this. Recall that this treaty allow broadcasters to control how their broadcasts are played back. One such control is prevention of skipping content (e.g. inability to skip commercials). Also recall that this treaty seeks to extend these broadcast protections to the Internet. Now recall if you will that spyware is rampant on the Internet. I define spyware as any program invoked or site displayed on my computer that I did not physically start or explicitly and plainly approve. Can you see how spyware purveyors would start creating webcasts (e.g. a spycast) after this treaty is approved? From there it is not to difficult to imagine seeing one of your constituents dragged into court because they attempted to remove or stop the spycast on their PRIVATE HOME COMPUTER. This scenario is technologically possible and will be legally plausible once the treaty is approved.

Here's how a spycaster would go after one of your constituents: A constituent would visit a website in which the spycaster's advertisement is displayed. The advertisement would be composed of a webcast or a link to automatically open the webcast³. The Internet Address (IP) would be logged in the spycaster's server. The spycaster's server would also have a special log that reports IPs where the spycast was somehow terminated or removed. Here's where the treaty would give the spycaster a new weapon. The spycaster could issue a subpoena to the citizens Internet Service Provider (ISP) and demand to know the name and address of the subscriber which was assigned to that IP at that time. Once the spycaster discovered the subscriber's name and address, they would send a demand letter to the subscriber. That letter would demand restitution in the amount slightly less than the cost of defense and threaten the subscriber with further legal action in accordance with the WIPO treaty if they choose not to pay the demand amount. Since this is a treaty the case could be brought in Federal court as a felony. Most people would end up paying the spycaster rather than spend the $5000 - $10000 minimum required⁴ to defend themselves. Think this is an unrealistic scenario? Something similar happens now with the RIAA. The RIAA is using the DMCA to sue registered Internet subscribers⁵ -- not the person who actually may have done something that is objectionable to the RIAA (whether true or not). In the RIAA's case I believe they file suit in state courts.

Another ugly consequence of this treaty is that if the material is already under copyright, those who want to use it would be forced to clear rights with multiple sets of rights holders. Not only would this hurt innovation and threaten citizens' access to information, it would change the nature of the Internet as a communication medium. Would you accept citizens being denied access to public information simply because the broadcaster/webcaster denied the right to replay? Similarly, a politically motivated broadcaster could easily refuse to clear the rights for any material (they were the first to broadcast) that would be damaging to their political party. Certainly you don't expect the Republican party to always be in power do you? In the Clinton days, had the treaty been in force then, it could have been used to squelch broadcast of the tapes, and other material that is public domain.

The treaty is moving fast. Next week, representatives at WIPO will decide whether to hold a diplomatic conference to adopt the treaty in early 2006. If it's adopted, it would require profound changes to US law. Yet there has been no discussion or analysis of its impact within the United States. There have been no hearings in Congress, and the United States' Copyright Office and the Patent and Trademark Office have declined to initiate a public consultation.

Important questions are going unanswered while the American public remains in the dark. Before creating a brand new set of exclusive rights for broadcasters, cablecasters, and webcasters, there should be a demonstrated need for such rights, and a clear understanding of how they will impact the public, educators, existing copyright holders, online communications, and new Internet technologies.

We are a sovereign nation. This treaty would remove some of our basic fundamental rights granted by the Constitution. If we're spending billions of dollars to fight terrorists who seek to dismantle our democracy (e.g. our Constitution), why on earth would anyone in Congress support such a backdoor attempt to achieve terrorist aims? It is our Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Association that terrorists are trying to stop. This treaty will in effect prevent Free Speech and Free Association simply by allowing broadcasters/webcasters to claim a copyright on the content spoken or created by citizens. Can you imagine a site like Al Jazeera using this treaty against US citizens⁶?

As Congress turns its attention to reform in the telecommunications and broadcasting sector, I strongly urge you to undertake a full and public investigation of the impact of this treaty. Our Constitutional and fair-use rights depend on it.

Signed, me...

Footnotes:

1I currently use these extensions to fight spyware and prevent objectionable content from being displayed.

2A law with anti-circumvention provisions similar to the proposed treaty is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The DMCA has created several unintended consequences as a result of its enactment. See website: http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/?f=unintended_consequences.html

3An alternate method would be to entice an unwary or young user into opening the spycast by deliberately mislabeling it or otherwise hiding the spycast's true nature. Try searching for “Pokemon” on Google and see how many adult sites are displayed. I have to search for my son to ensure he doesn't end up on one of those sites.

4Website: http://www.expertlaw.com/library/criminal/criminal_lawyer.html

5Website: http://dc.internet.com/news/article.php/3085051

6I can think of one such way. They could post a webcast of the reading of the Bible on their site and sue anyone who attempted to distribute it in any form. The treaty would allow any broadcaster or webcaster to copyright any replay or dissemination of public domain or “Creative Commons” works.
--
Chilling isn't it?
.:end:.

The war against our First Amendment rights

Just to start here are incidents of how the first amendment is being dismantled in this country under the guise of the war on terrorism/Patriot Act and the current vitriol directed at anyone who questions Operation Iraqi Liberation.

When Bears Growl (Or how I become the subject of a Secret Service Investigation)

Your ISP as Net watchdog

This will be updated from time to time and republished.

Retirement Accounts Privatization Entity

Part 1....
Once again Bush is on prime time television pushing his boondoggle of a program for some lucky contractor (Carlyle Bank anyone?). Let's do some numbers and think of nifty ways CB can make oodles of money.

1. Let's be optimistic and dismiss the 70% that don't like this plan, and instead assume that Bush is right and that we all jump at the chance to invest in our VOLUNTEER Personal Retirement Accounts. So we'll figure that 100 million workers will jump on the bushwagon and 'invest' the full $1500 a year in their brand new retirement accounts.

2. Let's say fees will be maxed out at 1% of the assets - which is the going rate of most of the current crop of investment firms. So of the $150 billion invested in one year, 1.5 billion in fees would be paid to the Retirement Accounts Privitization Entity each year. Think of that as guaranteed income for that group. Mind you these are asset based fees, so compounding will apply in later years. So if you're crying foul and want to use TSP's rate of 0.06%, then the windfall is only $90 million. But this isn't where the real money is.

3. Now conventional wisdom states that 5% is a decent return, but for you frothing at the mouth types, let's go ahead and up that to 7% - a safe historical return for the stock market when it used to actually make money and not go sideways. So of 150 billion, r.a.p.e. would make 10.5 billion, of which 9.0 billion would make it back to the holders of the new fangled private social security accounts (r.a.p.e.).

4. Who is r.a.p.e. investing in? Let's make it easy and say it's all in company B, Super Happy Investment Manager's fund. Now if you had $150 billion to invest and all you had to return was something close to 7%, don't you think you could find lots of high quality investments returning say 10% - 12%. Don't believe you can get 10% - 12%, look what United Defense made for Carlye. Anyway 10% of $150 billion leaves you with $15 billion, and the 'notes' you sold to r.a.p.e were for 7% so you only have to give 10.5 billion back and get to keep 4.5 billion. Not a bad profit.

5. What do you want to bet that both r.a.p.e. and SHIM would be owned by the same lot of Bush's cronies. Once again that contract would be awarded like more than 60% of the Pentagon's contracts have been -- on a no compete basis. Favored winners in Iraq/Afghanistan are currently Carlyle Group's 'investments' & Halliburton. I'm pretty sure they or any number of other related companies would win the r.a.p.e contract. Can you imagine a guaranteed income of $6 billion (or $4.5 billion using TSP fee rates) and rising each year due to compounding? How many companies make that much in pure profit each year, and without having to do much? Sound familar?

From the Carlyle Group's main web page :
"Our mission is to be the premier global private equity firm, leveraging the insight of Carlyle's team of investment professionals to generate extraordinary returns across a range of investment choices, while maintaining our good name and the good name of our investors."
- fin -