Month: August 2005

Posted on
by

I’ve got happy and sad today.

First off, funny. Kung Fu Monkey is consistently clever, funny, and insightful; it’s worth reading in your aggregator. Recently, David Brin pointed to one of KFM’s older posts, though…which I hadn’t seen, and flat out cracked me up:

TOO freakin’ true. I miss Republicans, too. And, to be fair, Democrats. And pragmatism, rational discourse, debate, and compromise. (Who IS this who’s hijacked my blog?? *grin*)

Secondly…sad and disturbing. The reports aren’t all in yet in the
investigation of the “shoot to head” mistaken killing of Jean Charles de
Menezes in London last month, but there are new allegations that are
not good. Like…he wasn’t running from police. He wasn’t wearing
a heavy coat. He basically left a flat that was under investigation,
went to the train station, got on, sat down, and had a guy jump on the
train and put a bullet in his head. And then several more, just to be
sure.

Uhhh…uhh…anyone else feeling a little sick?

Noted…all the info isn’t in yet. These are allegations, and part of an ongoing investigation. And the London police DO seem to be taking the investigation seriously. But this is not the sort of situation we want to get in, folks. Yeah…it got a little crazy, and no one was sure…so we removed the guy’s head. It’s policy. It’s the only way to be sure.

In case I haven’t said it recently…if this sort of thing becomes accepted, THE BAD GUYS WIN.

I actually think I’m to the point where I hope these new allegations are false. If they are, I’ll make sure to point it out as soon as I hear that.

Posted on
by

Holy crap, this is cool! After being pointed to mises.org (which I had visited
previously, but forgotten about, I’m ashamed to say) by the recent slashdot
article on the FCC and spectrum scarcity, I was pleased to note they
have both a blog and a podcast! Mises’ Human
Action is one amazing work. Now that I think of it; I haven’t read
it since college…it may be time for a re-read.

I think there may be something to this podcasting thing…*grin*.

UPDATE: Wow. They have a freakin’ boatload of audio available. This is great.

Posted on
by

Thanks (um…I guess *shiver*) to Bruce Schneier for the link:

Last year, Gainer (DC Chief of Police) retrained his officers to shoot
to kill when faced with a suspected suicide bomber who is uncooperative and refuses to stop and be searched.

…

The police organization’s behavioral profile says such a person might
exhibit “multiple anomalies,” including wearing a heavy coat or jacket
in warm weather or carrying a briefcase, duffle bag or backpack with
protrusions or visible wires.

So…I build the build the wearable PC kludgefest that I’m now
tentatively planning (full o’ protruding wires, I imagine), I exercise
my 4th Amendment rights at a checkpoint in DC…and they kill
me. Wouldn’t THAT be fucked? Maybe a MAKE magazine subscription for my
anniversary isn’t such a good idea…too dangerous. That stuff can get
you killed!

Posted on
by

IT Conversations hit a couple of home runs in the past week:

These both seriously kick butt. And I get the double bonus…Adam Bosworth I was already a fan of, but Jamais Cascio is a new read. I love finding new cool people.

More good stuff…Phillip Torrone at Make has posted multiple
podcasts that he captured at Defcon. It’s been a good week for
podcasts! FYI…there’s a zip file of
audio-only MP3s available corresponding to the M4B files that
Phillip has put up at Make. Thanks for hooking us up with that so
quickly, Phillip! Not all of us have iPods yet…*grin*