Before we can trust each other we must understand each other. To understand each other...hey, let's just eat.
Yet another hospital waiting room. “This is about as interesting as watching paint dry.”
A quick search with the laptop turned up an “unnamed” unsecured “guest” router that could only have belonged to the hospital. But what mischief is this? Google translate is blocked! This is too bizarre a claim not to be true, but here is the screenshot.
I never knew Google Translate was such a troublemaker.
My Free Will Astrology horoscope for this week says:
I won’t protest if you try to conceal yourself from bullies or gossips or critics or narcissists. You have cosmic permission to hunker down and keep a low profile….
This guy is spooky–he always seems to know what I’m thinking. But the rest of it is typically mystical:
But please don’t hide from yourself. In fact, I encourage you to make yourself extra available to yourself. Listen respectfully to the questions and comments that your shadow murmurs in your inner ear. Be eager to tune in to the messages your body is longing to tell you. These communications might sometimes be a minor pain in the ego, but the long-term benefits to your soul could be substantial.
Hmm. Perhaps it is time to resume my Ramadan fast which was so abruptly interrupted on my Minneapolis journey when a good buddy offered me 1) home brewed pale ale 2) home smoked pork 3) an even more excellent home brewed porter. Let’s just hope that, as they say, Allah is compassionate.
So what is the more global meaning of Ramadan that can be taken away by the non-Moslem as a spiritual vitamin? There are some who say the second ashra, or ten days of Ramadan are for forgiveness and forgiving others–but others consider this to be an incorrect hadith. I like this one better:
This is the month of self evaluation and rebuilding community and family ties. It is an opportunity from the Divine to aid us in our struggles to perfect our character in every way.
I suspect that reconciliation is also part of that equation.
Today’s walk:
Yard sculpture a la South Side:
THEFT OF THIS CASE IS A CRIME
WARNING : Use of this Case By Others is Against The Law
Potted.
Stairway to heaven and wheels of fortune.
Flora: Rose of Sharon (Hibiscus syriacus) *more below about biblical Rose of Sharon in Song of Songs
Fauna: two bunnies, one yellow bird (probably yellow warbler), and the eevil green parrots are baaaaack.
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*the biblical Rose of Sharon from Song of Solomon: is probably not the humble but versatile Hibiscus syriacus from our midwestern gardens
According to Wikipedia,
Chavatzelet HaSharon (Hebrew חבצלת השרון) is an onion-like flower bulb. (Hebrew חבצלת ḥăḇaṣṣeleṯ) is a flower of uncertain identity translated as the Rose of Sharon in English language translations of the Bible. Etymologists have inconclusively linked the Biblical חבצלת to the words בצל beṣel, meaning ‘bulb’, and חמץ ḥāmaṣ, which is understood as meaning either ‘pungent’ or ’splendid’ (The Analytical Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon). The name Rose of Sharon first appears in English in 1611 in the King James Version of the Bible. According to an annotation of Song of Solomon 2:1 by the translation committee of the New Revised Standard Version, “Rose of Sharon” is a mistranslation of a more general Hebrew word for “crocus”.
The most accepted interpretation for the Biblical reference is the Pancratium maritimum, which blooms in the late summer just above the high-tide mark. The Hebrew name for this flower is חבצלת or חבצלת החוף (coastal ḥăḇaṣṣeleṯ). It is commonly assumed by most people in Israel that, the Sharon plain being on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, the Biblical passage refers to this flower.
Here is the Pancratium maritimum (right) believed to be the “crocus” of Song of Songs (that one should be totally obvious) and also the Madonna Lily (left) believed to be the “lily of the valley” from Song of Solomon 2.1 (think lingam/yoni, bell/clapper, mortar/pestle).
Photo credits (Wikipedia): Madonna lily (left) and Rose of Sharon (right)
Oh my goodness, I am now a “proverbial philistine” with “smug self-confidence”, the epithets having been bestowed on me at languagehat, by none other than the Hatted One himself. I am honored and will do my best to carry the titles with all appropriate smuggishness.
But is LH just being a cranky old jackass? Or is there something else going on? The crankiness was directed at remarks I made about a particular author, but there are indeed other authors he himself is perfectly willing to be smug about.
Dan Brown, Grisham, Clancy, Crichton.
Who are these authors and how do his readers seem to know so much about them? Have they read them? If they are so objectionable, why? Not pedantic enough? Too prescriptivist? The mystery deepens. Clearly there is some sort of taboo associated with these books. I love to read banned books, oh yes I do. And these works are banned all right. Not by library fiat, but by the even more subtly powerful weapons of sarcasm, peer pressure, and innuendo.
Dan Brown, Grisham, Clancy, Crichton.
Specifically singled out for special attention was Dan Brown, ranked among the “creators of paint-by-number self-help books”. So you know which one I want to start with. Oh, yeah. By chance I remembered some books I brought home last week that were still in a bag and went to see what they were. Yes, indeed, a book by Dan Brown.
I feel like Orwell’s Winston Smith, holding “the book” for the first time.
Don’t tell anyone.
A few months ago someone named GeekLove08 left a message on this blog asking me to post a link to their new video. I don’t consider this to be a political blog as such, but when I saw the video, I had to write a post about it. The video is of Hillary Clinton clad in a demure pastel pink outfit that I wouldn’t be caught dead in, giving a speech to a women’s rights convention in China, with a Dvorak string instrumental in the background. As the violins soothe and Hillary’s voice intones words of healing
“…there is far more that unites us than divides us…we share a common future and we are here to find common ground…”
a montage of gender-based hate speech images from the current presidential campaign marches across the screen in stark ugliness. If you haven’t seen it yet you might go over and favorite it.
Today I found out that Geeklove’s Come a Long Way blog on blogspot.com, along with several pro-Hillary blogs listed on Just Say no Deal, had been forced out of the blogosphere in a rather ugly episode so typical of this campaign cycle. The blog has since been moved to WordPress.
While Hillary had already suspended her campaign at the time of the attack, the blogs in question had buttons with links to help Hillary pay down her campaign debt. Now who would want to prevent Hillary’s campaign debt from being paid?
I may have had a close call myself. A few days before the attacks on the other blogs, a pro-Obama website linked to this website and tried make some kind of claim they knew who I was and what my political views were, in spite of having an Obama button and not a link to pay down Hillary’s debt in my sidebar. كَلْب (No, that’s not endorsement; I have Hillary buttons too.) Why they consider me to be so noteworthy I do not know. Perhaps the paid Obama bloggers were being offered a bounty of some sort and they were trying to squeeze me into their criteria.
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Related posts:
Text of constituent reply letter on FISA Amendments Act of 2008 from Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL):
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July 25, 2008 [Nijma][address] Dear Ms. [Nijma]: Thank you for your message regarding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). I appreciate hearing from you on this important issue and share your concerns. Protecting both the security and the freedom of the American people is among my highest priorities. We must ensure that the federal government defends the people of the United States from external threats while preserving the civil liberties that have helped make the United States the greatest and most enduring democracy in the world. On July 9, 2008, the Senate passed the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 (H.R. 6304) which I opposed, and the President signed the measure into law the following day. On the positive side, the legislation establishes clearer protections for Americans, including the requirement that all electronic surveillance of U.S. citizens – both inside and outside the United States – be approved by the FISA Court. Information obtained about Americans can only be used for proper intelligence or law enforcement purposes, and the procedures for using information obtained about Americans must be approved annually by the FISA court. However, central to the debate on this legislation was the issue of whether or not telecommunications companies that participated in illegal surveillance should receive retroactive immunity from prosecution. I opposed retroactive immunity for these companies and supported an amendment to the Act that would have prevented them from obtaining immunity retroactively. The amendment was unsuccessful. After the amendment failed, I voted against the final bill, but it passed by a vote of 69-28. While I still oppose immunity for the telecommunications companies, it is my hope that the other provisions of this new legislation will strengthen the protection of American citizens so that electronic surveillance is conducted in a manner consistent with the rule of law and the Constitution’s commitment to civil liberties. Thank you again for contacting me. Please feel free to keep in touch. Sincerely, Richard J. Durbin United States Senator RJD/td P.S. If you are ever visiting Washington, please feel free to join me and other members of the Illinois Congressional delegation at our weekly constituent coffee. When the Senate is in session, we provide coffee and donuts every Thursday at 8:30 a.m. as we hear what is on the minds of Illinoisans and respond to your questions. We would welcome your participation. Please call my D.C. office for more details.
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Comment on letter:
The big talking point here is opposition to telecom immunity–I have pointed out before that the fourth amendment is not very talkable, especially in brief or casual conversations, in spite of the outrage in the blogosphere on the subject, although Durbin does mention rule of law and civil liberties. Echoing Obama’s hints of a quid pro quo, Durbin has hope that “other provisions of this new legislation will strengthen the protection of American citizens” without enumerating what provisions he agrees with.
Obama, who voted against Senator Dodd’s filibuster and for the FISA bill, said the bill “provides an important tool to fight the war on terrorism and provides for an Inspectors General report so that we can finally get to the bottom of the warrantless wiretapping program and how it undermined our civil liberties.”
My prediction is that the report to congress required by this legislation will trigger a new round of public debate on the subject, this time under a new president who might feel less inclined to defend business as usual and a little tired at having to continuously defend it in the face of continuing public pressure.
Since the passage of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 last week, it is now legal for the government to listen in on any American citizen without a search warrant as long as they say they are trying to find a terrorist. Then they have to apply for a certification. If the government doesn’t get the certification after 67 days, they are supposed to just stop listening. Of course the government was spying on citizens before the law was passed, but that’s another topic.
The passage of the FISA amendment is not the only example of our eroding privacy. In a court ruling last week YouTube was ordered to turn over customer records about viewing habits to a court in order to prove something about a commercial marketing concern. Even though the Video Privacy Protection Act forbids revealing video materials requested by customers, it was not clear if YouTube would be permitted to provide the information with the identities concealed.
So what does that mean in the life of someone who, say, gets a new computer, to take a hypothetical case? Suppose someone buys a computer from Dell. Sometime after powering up their new computer for the first time they would see the following popup asking for permission to monitor their viewing habits:
Please indicate your preferences below and click next to continue.
Dell offers a suite of technical support tools designed to provide you with customized technical content and maintenance tools information that are specific to your computer. To provide this support to you, Dell needs to collect your computer’s Service Tag and, on an ongoing basis, information about your system configuration( the hardware and software installed on your computer) and Dell support tool use data. Aside from your Service Tag, none of the system configuration or use data can be used to identify you.
Customer privacy is of the utmost concern to Dell. Dell will not collect any computer use information outside of the Dell support tools, such as Internet use or personal files. Moreover, we will not sell any information we collect in connection with the Dell support tools or otherwise disclose the information for commercial purposes. Dell’s Privacy Policy applies to information collected by Dell support tools. Click here to see Dell’s Privacy Policy.
You will enjoy a variety of personalized benefits if you allow Dell to collect the information described above. For example:
How reassuring. Somehow I don’t feel very reassured, though, especially since reading the text of the FISA amendment.
But what about the privacy statement? Maybe it has something reassuring.
Here it is, under the heading “Disclosing Personal Information”:
We may disclose your personal information in connection with law enforcement, fraud prevention, or other legal action as required by law or regulation, or if Dell reasonably believes it is necessary to protect Dell, its customers or the public.
At least they tell you.
Not cooperating with the government’s unconstitutional spying would certainly leave the company unprotected. I mean, look at Qwest, that told the government they wouldn’t do anything illegal… Isn’t their CEO sitting in jail right now under some murky insider trading conviction?
I suppose my neighbors–and my old roommate–would tell me “you better HOPE they are listening in so they can catch any terrorists.” And the liberal bloggers who are now in an Obama lovefest/feeding frenzy would say “shut up, we have to elect Obama.” Or maybe the more pragmatic ones would point to the WordPress ban in Turkey or the cooperation of American companies with Chinese government censorship–this is pretty small potatoes compared to what happens in other countries. Yes, it is. And I have lived in those other countries and been glad for the presumed surveillance. But this is MY country . It just doesn’t feel right.
What does it matter anyway if some pimply-faced kid is sitting in a room full of optical cables munching on a donut and checking out my browsing habits, or whatever it is they do. I mean, it’s not like I use the internet to look at porn or research explosives or mount Denial Of Service attacks on anyone who publishes cartoons I don’t like. And I don’t receive emails from the Middle East all that often.
Well, I just don’t like it, that’s what.
I was always taught that reading someone else’s mail is rude and unthinkable, that privacy is important, and that respecting other peoples possessions is the grease that keeps our culture turning.
When I was in high school back in the dark ages, I used to have a Peanuts cartoon taped to my notebook–inside so no one in authority could see it. The comic was Peppermint Patty sitting outside the principal’s office after coming up against the Dress Code. Yes, in those days we had a rule against female students wearing slacks in our school, even in the winter when it was forty below. And as far as wearing a black armband on moratorium day, or a headband, or moccasins, don’t even ask. Peppermint Patty’s problem was her sandals. In the first frame Patty sits on a chair outside the principal’s office looking at her feet and saying, “These are nice sneakers, but I miss my sandals.” In the next frame, the bubble over Patty’s head says “snif”. In the last frame, Charlie Brown says, “All I know is any rule that makes a little girl cry has to be a bad rule.”
For years and years and years, humans have lived and breathed and used computers without the manufacturers of those computers having identifying information about them. I don’t think the world will come to an end if users don’t sign up for Dell’s program. These days, there’s too many new bad rules out there.
I realize this isn’t a grand marshalling of reasons against FISA that would move anyone who isn’t moved against FISA already. It’s more a quesiton of how I feel. But feelings have always been my first line of protection. How to spell a word–does it look right? Nine time out of ten, my feeling about a word will tell me if it’s mispelled. Change your answer on a test?–don’t do it! For me at least, my first gut reaction is always right. Got creepy feeling about a guy? Don’t date him, don’t be alone with him, don’t even get on an elevator with him. Cross the street, get out of his range of consciousness. Those nonverbal signals may be hard to explain, but they’re there for a reason. Don’t ignore your spider sense.
My favorite Chinese curse is , “may you live in interesting times.” These time are way too interesting. Oh, I know it’s all unconstitutional, things have shifted before like this during the Civil War, habeas corpus suspended and so forth, and they always shift back when the military threat is over. But something in the back of my mind keeps saying, this time what if, what if…”we have always been at war with….”
How would you change your internet browsing habits if you knew someone–the CIA, your boss, your mother, anyone–was looking over your shoulder watching every Google search you did, every website you browsed, and every YouTube video you watched? Well, they are–at least the part about YouTube.
The internet giant Google is being forced to hand over the personal information of every person who has ever watched a video on the YouTube website as part of a billion-dollar court case in the US.
A judge in New York has ordered that Google, which owns YouTube, must pass on the details of more than 100 million people – many of them in the UK – to Viacom, the US broadcasting company which owns channels including MTV and Nickelodeon.
The data will include unique internet addresses, email accounts and the history of every video watched on the website, giving Viacom’s experts the ability to conduct a detailed examination of the viewing habits of millions of people around the world.
The information is being sought in relation to a copyright lawsuit, but Google says they want to anonymize the data–strip it of personally identifying information–before turning it over to the courts.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation agrees, pointing out that the Video Privacy Protection Act protects “personally identifiable information,” which is defined to include “information which identifies a person as having requested or obtained specific video materials or services.”
What can you do? The second most frequent search item on YouTube right now is how to clear your viewing history. You can sign up for Google and its sister entity YouTube using the throwaway registration website spam.la (WordPress blogs won’t let you do that), but it looks to me like you can’t change your email address once you have it. You can clear your geographical information, except for the country. But using a pseudonym on YouTube may not be enough to protect your privacy. The AOL search fiasco proved that users could be identified just by the information they searched for.
In the meantime. the ruling opens up any number of possibilities of how your credit card information, telephone bills, electronic tolls or subway tickets, and what diseases or fetishes you search for on the internet can be made public.
But why? Whatever is the court thinking of?
U.S. District Judge Louis L. Stanton dismissed privacy arguments as speculative.
Back in the golden age of the 60’s, when every university rule from no alcohol to required chapel attendance to required English 101 courses was being challenged, a certain university decided to have a rule that if you lived in a dorm and you had a visitor of the opposite sex, the door to your room had to be open at a 45 degree angle. Students were not pleased. In the middle of the night, they managed to remove the front door of the college president, who lived in a small mansion on campus. “Let’s see how HE likes not having any privacy”, the students said later. The rule was rescinded.
I sincerely hope that this very moment someone is speculatively taking the front door off of judge Louis L. Stanton’s life.
For anyone who was hoping for a presidential veto of the FISA Amendments Act, it didn’t happen.
Our impetuous president wasted no time in the signing the bill today, only a day after the bill’s passage, in a Rose Garden ceremony. He even gave a speech:
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Welcome to the Rose Garden. Today I’m pleased to sign landmark legislation that is vital to the security of our people. The bill will allow our intelligence professionals to quickly and effectively monitor the communications of terrorists abroad while respecting the liberties of Americans here at home. The bill I sign today will help us meet our most solemn responsibility: to stop new attacks and to protect our people.
Members of my administration have made a vigorous case for this important law. I want to thank them and I also want to thanks the members of the House and the Senate who’ve worked incredibly hard to get this legislation done. Mr. Vice President, welcome.
Respect the members of the Senate and the House who’ve joined us — Senate Republican Whip Jon Kyl; John Boehner, House Republican Leader; Roy Blunt, House Republican Whip. I do want to pay special tribute to Congressman Steny Hoyer, House Majority Leader, for his hard work on this bill. I thank so very much Senator Jay Rockefeller, Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and Senator Kit Bond, Vice Chairman, for joining us. I appreciate the hard work of Congressman Silvestre Reyes, Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and Congressman Pete Hoekstra, Ranking Member. I also welcome Congressman Lamar Smith, Ranking Member of the House Judiciary. I thank all the other members of the House and Senate who have joined us. I appreciate your very good work.
I welcome Attorney General Michael Mukasey, as well as Admiral Mike McConnell, Director of National Intelligence. I appreciate other members of the administration who have joined us. I want to thank the congressional staff who are here, and all the supporters of this piece of legislation.
Almost seven years have passed since that September morning when nearly 3,000 men, women and children were murdered in our midst. The attack changed our country forever. We realized America was a nation at war against a ruthless and persistent enemy. We realized that these violent extremists would spare no effort to kill again. And in the aftermath of 9/11, few would have imagined that we would be standing here seven years later without another attack on American soil.
The fact that the terrorists have failed to strike our shores again does not mean that our enemies have given up. To the contrary, since 9/11 they’ve plotted a number of attacks on our homeland. I can remember standing up here — I receive briefings on the very real and very dangerous threats that America continues to face.
One of the important lessons learned after 9/11 was that America’s intelligence professionals lacked some of the tools they needed to monitor the communications of terrorists abroad. It is essential that our intelligence community know who our enemies are talking to, what they’re saying, and what they’re planning. Last year Congress passed temporary legislation that helped our intelligence community monitor these communications.
The legislation I am signing today will ensure that our intelligence community professionals have the tools they need to protect our country in the years to come. The DNI and the Attorney General both report that, once enacted, this law will provide vital assistance to our intelligence officials in their work to thwart terrorist plots. This law will ensure that those companies whose assistance is necessary to protect the country will themselves be protected from lawsuits from past or future cooperation with the government. This law will protect the liberties of our citizens while maintaining the vital flow of intelligence. This law will play a critical role in helping to prevent another attack on our soil.
Protecting America from another attack is the most important responsibility of the federal government — the most solemn obligation that a President undertakes. When I first addressed the Congress after 9/11, I carried a badge by the mother of a police officer who died in the World Trade Center. I pledged to her, to the families of the victims, and to the American people that I would never forget the wound that was inflicted on our country. I vowed to do everything in my power to prevent another attack on our nation. I believe this legislation is going to help keep that promise. And I thank the members who have joined us. And now it’s my honor to sign the bill.
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Present at the Rose Garden signing were:
Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M.; Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif.; U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey; Director of National Intelligence Admiral Michael McConnell; Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich.; Rep.Darrell Issa, R-Calif.; Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Calif., Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas; Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, Vice President Dick Cheney; Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman; Arizona Senator Jon Kyl, Rep. John Boehner, R- Ohio; Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R- Mich.; Missouri Senator Kit Bond, Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo.; Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas; Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas; and West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller.
Word count:
9/11–4
terrorist–4
freedom–0
rights–0
warrants–0
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زِدْنِى عِلْمًۭا "Enrich me with knowledge." Koran 20:114
It would surely be better ... to give up not only a part, but, if necessary, even the whole, of our constitution, to preserve the remainder!
-Boyle Roche arguing for the habeas corpus suspension bill in Ireland.
