Issuepedia:Filing Room/to file/2007

2007-11

• 2007-11-07 Lockerbie: "Tampered evidence": the key witness in the Lockerbie Pan Am bombing fudged on his identification of the timer-switch used to implicate Libya and convict Libyan agent Abdulbaset al-Megrahi of the crime. The actual timer-switch found in the wreckage could not have one of the batch sold to Libya, because it was a different color from the ones in that batch.

2007-09

• found 2007-09-30: AlternateFocus: "The three founding directors, a Jew, a Christian and a Muslim, are working together for peace and justice by offering the American public media which shows another side of Middle Eastern issues."
• found 2007-09-28: The Paradox of Self-Amendment: A Study of Law, Logic, Omnipotence, and Change by Peter Suber, Philosophy Department, Earlham College: probably an important work to study when trying to develop stable, functional self-rule systems
• found 2007-09-20 (video): Question About Covert Plans to Suspend the Constitution: Ollie North is prevented from answering Congressman Jack Brooks's question about plans to suspend the Constitution, during the Iran Contra hearings
  • personally, in Mr. Brooks's position, I would have said something like "This is a free country, we have freedom of speech, and I will ask this question, and you will allow Mr. North to answer to the extent that he is permitted to do so." or perhaps "I am asking this question. Mr. North, what is your answer?" --Woozle 10:03, 20 September 2007 (EDT)
  • the description here says:
    • During the Iran Contra hearings Congressman Jack Brooks directly asked Oliver North about a story in a Miami newspaper that exposed COG plans to suspend the Constitution. There was a lot of tension in the room and the chairman stopped Brooks and said, "that goes into a highly sensitive and classified area." Brooks countered saying that he was deeply concerned because it specifically mentioned the suspension of the US Constitution, and the chairman just basically repeated himself.
  • Who was the Chairman?
  • Has any of this been de-classified since?
• found 2007-09-19: Declaration of Reasonable Doubt About the Identity of William Shakespeare: for a section on unconventional theories, perhaps?

2007-07

• 2007-07-31 In Games, an Insight Into the Rules of Evolution: The prisoner's dilemma game played over generations, as part of a genetic algorithm, shows how "soulless/heartless" Darwinian evolution leads to altruism and honorable behavior – and the importance of community stability and "reputation" (accountability) in aiding these phenomena.
• found 2007-07-31: Federal Debt Relief System: this company has all the earmarks of a scam, but they make a much more thorough case than most such scams. Seems to be related to much of the material in America: Freedom to Fascism. Keep an eye out for further evidence, and check their web site's claims.
• 2007-07-27:
  • Schumer to fight new Bush high court picks: the neocons are spinning this as further continuation of "The Democrats' unconstitutional usurpation of power": Is This A Coup? If Not, What Is It? Perhaps we need an article on the neocon reality inversion, wherein "the democrats" or "liberals" are accused of crimes curiously mirroring those committed by the Bush II administration, playing nicely into the fallacy of moderation (a continuing theme in neocon circles, e.g. Fox News's "fair and balanced" reporting, wherein lies and distortions are "the other side of the story", in much the same way that they want intelligent design to be presented in schools as an "alternative" with equal validity to the theory of evolution).
  • U.S. Abandons Iraqi Translators to Their Fates While Diminutive Denmark Rescues Its Own by Maura Stephens: much has been made of the suggestion that leaving Iraq means abandoning our allies there -- but, as this article indicates, we have already been doing that. For eventual US abandonment of allies page.
    • 2007-07-29 Revealed: MI5's role in torture flight hell: "An Iraqi who was a key source of intelligence for MI5 has given the first ever full insider's account of being seized by the CIA and bundled on to an illegal 'torture flight' under the programme known as extraordinary rendition" -- not only do we abandon our allies, we torture them if the paperwork isn't right.
• found 2007-07-27: There are rational, scientific ways of dealing with uncertainty, including subjective logic and fuzzy logic.
• 2007-07-26: Bogus Media-Generated "Scandal" Undermines Democracy in Ecuador by Mark Weisbrot, The Guardian UK: yes, the media really do distort things, and here's an example from outside the US just to prove that this idea isn't all partisan hype or loony-fringe nuttiness
• found 2007-07-25: A Deserter, Not A "Dissenter" by Michelle Malkin: good example of the harshest "with us or against us", "obey the president or you're a traitor" authoritarian leader kind of thinking
• found 2007-07-24: Rowan Atkinson leads crusade against religious hatred Bill: seems to be related to the events described in While Europe Slept
• 2007-07-21: for eventual page about the US press corps: It's all very de-press-ing
  • related cartoon
• 2007-07-18: You are Destroying America. Yes, You.: strongly-worded editorial about the "me too"ism of the Bush followers, a form of authoritarian follower personality which perhaps needs a page all to itself.
• 2007-07-17: Companies Claim Right to Interfere with eBay Auctions for Charging Too Little: some of the anti-competitive / pro-monopolistic outcomes of the decision in Leegin Creative Leather Products v. PSKS
• 2007-07-16: MIT Project aims human buffer overflow at Secret Service: project to protest against "yellow dots"
  • also List of Printers Which Do or Do Not Display Tracking Dots
• found 2007-07-15: wikipedia:Jobbers Canyon Historic District might be a good item to have on an article about the excesses of big business
• 2007-07-13 A matter of national security involving the relationship between local food production and peak oil
  • Woozle notes: reading this sent me on a train of thought which ended with the idea that "restrictively zoned" areas where ability to farm is reduced (either by law or by practical considerations) should maybe pay some kind of food-sustainability tax to support local (i.e. close enough to be transportable by muscle power) farming... or something...

  Though I'm hesitant to propose anything which increases the complexity of the tax system... but just because 99% of something is crap doesn't mean that it has to be crap, I guess. However, the next thought that comes up in my head is that the tax system needs to be hugely cleaned up and simplified before we start trying to use it productively... Which is a much larger problem.

  Actually, what would be better than an ongoing tax (from a fairness POV) would be a local impact fee paid by the developer -- that's when the decision is made... though I suppose millage rates could also be scaled by "desirability of use", which would include farming. (More desirable use = lower millage rate) Here in Durham, there used to be an impact fee -- which had more to do with the extra infrastructure costs of supporting new developments, e.g. fire stations, police, ecological maintenance... (oh, yeah, and schools) ...but the developers are very powerful here, and managed to get that done away with. I need to write an article about that.

• 2007-07-12 Sheehan: Distinct Chance Of Staged Attack, Martial Law: this doesn't quite go under we need another 9/11; we probably need a page about false flag attacks and another about the danger of a false flag under Bush. Also should probably start a Cindy Sheehan page.
• found 2007-07-04:
  • Vox EU: "Research-based policy analysis and commentary from Europe's leading economists"
  • The Soviet Collapse: Grain and Oil by Yegor Gaidar
• 2007-07-03 Liberia's Taylor appears in court: "Liberia's former President Charles Taylor has appeared at his war crimes trial in The Hague for the first time."
• found 2007-07-02:
  • The Digital Display Working Group "are supposed to agree on some logical and simple means of connecting video devices such as your computer monitor, TV or HDTV, DVD player, projector, etc. ... I now have to sort between a veritable CLUSTERFUCK of cable types, and buy costly adapters that may or may not actually work! The list now includes (but is not limited to): HD15, HDMI, DVI-A, DVI-D, DVI-M, DVI-I, DVI-Mini, Optical DVI, S-Video, RCA, Component (Y,Pb,Pr), SVGA, DFP, Hi-Res BNC, SVHS, etc etc etc." I was rather suspicious of USB cable design, as I could never fathom why the device end has to be completely different from the host end. Isn't that what connectors usually use gender for? Perhaps there is actually more to this.
  • Need a page for all the issues surrounding the US income tax:
    • Why an Income Tax is Not Necessary to Fund the U.S. Government
    • America: Freedom to Fascism
    • 2005-03-08 is the domestic income tax a "surveillance" tax? by Kevin Abrams: "The present tax on domestic incomes, enacted in both Canada and the United States as an emergency war time measure, must today be investigated for its overall impact upon the freedom and productivity of the people who find themselves under said tax regimes."
    • Broad Ownership Needs Broad Taxpaying
    • 1995-06-06 'Down, Down to Hell! and Say I Sent Thee!!' by Charles Adams: Testimony on Replacing the Income Tax Before the Committee on Ways and Means, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington D.C., June 6, 1995. Also refers to a book.
    • The true nature of the withholding tax, and the 1040 Form circa 1942: possibly interesting, or possibly an attempt to make the obvious seem conspiratorial. To be investigated at a better time.
• found 2007-07-01: The Hippies Were Right! and mainstream culture is finally starting to embrace the ideas put forth by hippie culture 40 years ago

2007-06

• found 2007-06-15:
  • 2007-06-15 Copyright coalition: piracy more serious than burglary, fraud, bank robbery
    • Taking Liberties: satire inspired by the above article
  • 2006-05-05 The problem with MPAA's shocking piracy numbers
  • 2003-07-17 Is P2P the next 'drug war'?
• found 2007-06-14:
  • Dishonesty is sanitized in a world of spin: good example of why news should be wikified. Potential material for Issuepedia:Newspaper Challenge.
  • They are their own fixer-uppers by Leonard Pitts, Jr. Advocates for homeless people should seriously look into why this kind of thing (YouthBuild) can't be done more easily, renovating countless quasi-historic houses which otherwise will only cost the community money to demolish. I suspect the problems lie in money-influenced local politics which favor big developers over low-budget renovation. See also housing affordability.
• 2007-06-06
  • The Ballad of Ake Green: "bloggers have been noting the acceleration of a right-wing disinformation campaign that I first noticed on election day in 2004."
• An idea, inspired by this entry: people should be able to sue media outlets for reporting false information. The fine should be proportional to the number of viewers or readers, with some kind of scale set for severity of the error. So local newspapers wouldn't be hit very hard, but large "trusted" newspapers would... and TV news would get clobbered. (The conclusions Rove draws, though, are still questionable at best, even if his facts were right.)

2007-05

• found 2007-05-28:
  • from Emord & Associates: "Did you know that the Food and Drug Administration prohibits food and dietary supplement companies from telling consumers how nutrients in their products can prevent or treat disease?"
  • 911TruthNC blog: more about conspiracies and preventing fascism than about 9/11 in particular
  • 911TruthNC Secret Government: links to (and brief descriptions of) relevant documentaries online
• 2007-05-18 Global net censorship 'growing': "The level of state-led censorship of the net is growing around the world, a study of so-called internet filtering by the Open Net Initiative suggests." For Internet censorship, category:internet and other stuff to be linked from Internet page
• re-filed 2007-05-18:
  • 2000-08-15 The Crisis of Public Reason by Phil Agre
    • Red Rock Eater News Service
• 2007-05-15 Magic Phones: how cell phone usage has positively affected economic growth in Kerala, India: for page on technology (and how it affects things)?
• 2007-05-09 Feds Say Terror Attack Was at Hand: "Federal authorities said Wednesday that six Muslim men suspected of plotting to massacre U.S. soldiers at Fort Dix were on the verge of carrying out the attack when they were arrested this week." (Wikipedia: 2007 Fort Dix attack plot) Perhaps there needs to be a page listing foiled terrorist attacks?
• found 2007-05-05:
  • A Post-Hegemonic Future
  • The Lost Hegemon, Part 1 (shouldn't it be "Hegemony"?)
  • The Lost Hegemon, Part 2

2007-04

• 2007-04-30 'The Rules' of free speech: No bullying by Leonard Pitts, Jr.
• 2007-04-30 notes on US banks no longer returning original checks – Woozle recommends the following standards:
  • actual-size printouts should be available on request
  • minimum resolution 200 dpi color, 300 dpi recommended
  • JPEG is probably best, but need to recommend maximum compression (is there a standard for this?)
  • online banking standards:
    • needs to keep track of which images have been saved
    • allow bulk-download of all images, or within a date range or check-number range
    • keep images available for a minimum amount of time which is stated in the area where you view or download images
    • recommended length of time: 2 years minimum
    • if an image of a check is supposed to now be as good as the original, then banking customers should be able to electronically submit checks for deposit
• 2007-04-26 Feeling Rational: this confirms my own long-standing argument that emotion and logic/rationality are not completely at odds; "total logic" does not imply lack of emotion, Mr. Spock and Lt. Cmdr. Data notwithstanding. Motivation implies emotion. "Love is complicated logic." – Jenny Hall
• 2007-04-25 Turkey's Christians face backlash "Several recent murders have confronted Turkey's growing ranks of Christian evangelicals." File under: Turkey, evangelism, Christianity
• found 2007-04-24: Penn & Teller on bottled water: part 1 | part 2 | part 3: many details of interest
• found 2007-04-23: Seven ways the Internet is changing politics by Richard K Miller (perhaps this should be consolidated with "similar projects" in Issuepedia:About?)
• found 2007-04-22: An Army of Christian Right Lawyers Is Waging War on the Constitution by Sarah Posner: maybe make a page for this, as there is a lot of information: An Army of Christian Right Lawyers Is Waging War on the Constitution
• 2007-04-20:
  • How doubling the NIH's budget created a funding crisis by John Timmer
  • Christian Right Leaders: America Can Only Be 'Reclaimed' by Religious Revival by Adele Stan (so many potential places to file this; where should it go?)
• found 2007-04-20: The Humanum Genus was a papal encyclical issued on 1884-04-20 criticizing many of the founding principles of the United States, including the separation of church and state
• found 2007-04-19: I've passed the bar, and I'm on a mission from God: whether or not you agree with the narrator's actions, this anecdote demonstrates the power that lawyers have in American society. Unless it's not true, in which case consult a lawyer to see if it could have happened.
• found 2007-04-15: http://www.petakillsanimals.com/ for eventual article on PETA, to be linked from animal care, to be linked from corruption in academia; also animal rights (both a valid set of ideas and an excuse for extremism); also Animal Liberation Front, the Draize Test
  • Penn & Teller on PETA: Bullshit! ...need a page about hypocrisy
• found 2007-04-06:
  • Independent Media Center
  • Are we Press? Part Deux: "citizen journalism"
  • Well-paid assholes with opinions versus poorly-paid assholes with opinions: "citizen journalism"? bah!
  • A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE by Steven Pinker: debunking "the noble savage"
• found 2007-04-04, dated 2004-07-15: New Book Debunks Commonly Accepted Picture of a Polarized Electorate, press release for the book Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America: 'Abortion, homosexuality, gender, religion — each of these controversial subjects is examined, and the authors’ analysis leads to the surprising contrarian conclusion, that "on the whole, the views of the American citizenry look moderate, centrist, nuanced, ambivalent — choose your term — rather than extreme, polarized, unconditional [and] dogmatic."'

2007-03

• found 2007-03-30: Money! Money? money...: an explanation of the evolution of money, in understandable English
  • Technocracy FAQ
• 2007-03-27: Banning Legos by John J. Miller: Am I being paranoid, or are they trying to make it sound like an example of liberal lunacy? The author never actually *says* so, but he gives a carefully disparaging spin to phrases like "social theorists" and "social justice"...
  • Why We Banned Legos: the original article. Ok, maybe it is looniness. Not so much liberal as classical-left, i.e. socialist. Seems to me they took a great opportunity to work out a better system and teach the kids the kind of critical thinking necessary to build and maintain a democratic society, and blew it by swinging the pendulum to the complete opposite extreme. --Woozle 14:35, 28 March 2007 (EDT)
  • Re-thinking Re-education : The Story of the Hilltop Children's Center in Seattle: another righty rant taking more explicit advantage of the opportunity to paint more moderate liberals in a bad light
• found 2007-03-25:
  • In response to Mix’n’Match: "Opponents have expressed strong views; Josephine Quintavelle of Comment on Reproductive Ethics said: "This is abhorrent ... there is a basic human feeling that animals and humans do not mix in these areas." Calum Mackellar of the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics said "In this kind of procedure you are mixing at a very intimate level animal eggs and human chromosomes and you may begin to undermine the whole distinction between animals and humans."
    • It may be abhorrent to you, but to most of us it seems like a perfectly natural and reasonable thing to do in the course of the investigations described, and an essential step in working out some badly-needed medical techniques. Get over your high-and-mighty posturing and get back to the middle ages where you belong. "Undermine the whole distinction between animals and humans" – WTF? And just why is that a problem? --Woozle 19:43, 25 March 2007 (EDT)
  • Academics For Academic Freedom: "We, the undersigned, believe the following two principles to be the foundation of academic freedom:
    1. that academics, both inside and outside the classroom, have unrestricted liberty to question and test received wisdom and to put forward controversial and unpopular opinions, whether or not these are deemed offensive, and
    2. that academic institutions have no right to curb the exercise of this freedom by members of their staff, or to use it as grounds for disciplinary action or dismissal."
    • Does this address issues posted in corruption in academia?
• dotherightthing.com: if there isn't already a page about this sort of site (e.g. BuyBlue), then there needs to be. In my present braindead state of mind, though, I can't think what page it should be on.
• found 2007-03-02, dated 2002-11-18: The Darknet and the Future of Content Distribution by Peter Biddle, Paul England, Marcus Peinado, and Bryan Willman, all of Microsoft Corporation: discusses the economics of DRM

2007-02

• found 2007-02-28: The Stewardship: writings and other things devoted to "the assumption of responsibility for the welfare of the world. That welfare requires much effort, that responsibility is realized in many ways. Most stewardship is limited, if not compromised, and most sites on the internet with an orientation towards stewardship are likewise limited. This site is meant to provide a voice to the central principles of stewardship, to the unified progressive cause of preserving and improving the world."
• 2007-02-16 Texas Republicans are anti-Copernicus: the Flat Earth Society lives!
  • 2007-02-09 Tax-supported "evolution science" now unlawful under the Constitution, from Warren Chisum
  • 2007-02-15 Chisum contrite over memo: apparently the web site misrepresents Chisum's views
• Myths about the developing world, a TEDtalk by Hans Rosling: includes demonstration of very interesting dynamic graphing system, and description of efforts to make global economic information more easily available

2007-01

• found 2007-01-13: Text and Collaboration: A personal manifesto for the Text Outline Project by Larry Sanger (on back burner "until 2007 or 2008"): some interesting and possibly useful observations on collaborative knowledge-building and decisionmaking
• 2007-01-11 Must-know terms for the 21st Century intellectual: Redux: accelerating change, anthropic principle, artificial general intelligence, augmented reality, Bayesian Rationality, Cosmological Eschatology (aka physical eschatology), Engineered Negligible Senescence, existential risks, extended identity, Fermi Paradox, friendly AI, human enhancement (guided evolution), human exceptionalism (a.k.a. human speciesism, human raceism, human superiority, etc.), information theoretic death, mass automation, memetic engineering, mind transfer, molecular assembler, neurodiversity, neural interface device, noosphere, open source, participatory panopticon, political globalization, post-scarcity economy, quantum computation, radical luddism, remedial ecology, simulation argument, soft paternalism, technological singularity
• found 2007-01-11: Cryptome: what exactly does this site do, and is it useful?