In a July 22 letter to the plant, copied to Yum! Brands and forwarded to The Associated Press, PETA says its investigator also obtained eyewitness testimony about employees "ripping birds' beaks off, spray painting their faces, twisting their heads off, spitting tobacco into their mouths and eyes, and breaking them in half -- all while the birds are still alive."

Damn! Everyone now and then something like this comes along that kind of makes me free bad for making PETA the butt of so many jokes. Good catch by them on this one.

Put down that drumstick!

] Chinese military authorities have released the surgeon
] who exposed China's SARS coverup and condemned the 1989
] crackdown on democracy protesters, apparently bowing to
] the doctor's status as a local hero and to international
] pressure to free him, people informed about his case
] said.
]
] The doctor, Jiang Yanyong, 72, returned home late Monday
] night after about 45 days in military custody, where he
] underwent political indoctrination sessions and was
] investigated for possible criminal activity, said one
] person who had been told about his case. He is not
] expected to be charged with a crime.

More cracks in China's control over its people.

] But it seems likely that authorities will claim internally
] that Dr. Jiang showed remorse for his actions and, in
] Chinese party terminology, made progress in his political
] thinking under the instruction of military authorities.

HA! This is the funniest and yet scariest thing I have read in a while.

China Releases Surgeon Who Exposed SARS Coverup

] After analyzing the video, you must gather more clues by
] cracking word puzzles, analyzing video clips, scouring
] more than 300 actual and fictitious Web sites and by
] following instructions sent in e-mail messages from
] virtual characters, including The Phoenix himself.
]
] Receiving and reading e-mail and surfing the Net takes
] place outside of the game, using your own e-mail address
] and Web browser. While this helps immerse you in the
] game, it also means you'll need an Internet connection to
] play.

This sounds really damn cool, considering many Memestreams range from casual code crackers and puzzle solvers, to CIA-briefing Crypologists. A friend of mine (who hopefully will start using Memestreams, [elbows JR]) beta-tested EA's Majestic back in Summer 2001. It was this same kind of thing, an interactive game that used Instant Messaging and email to involve you in a "game" with other players. I know he thought it kicked ass. Think of a real life version of the movie "The Game."

I'd love to see how the technology has advanced in the last 3 years.

Games moving into 'real world'

Aren't we all.

Aren't we all [image]

] Bush said the CIA has found no sign of a direct
] connection between Iran and the suicide hijackings that
] killed nearly 3,000 people.
]
] "We will continue to look and see if the Iranians were
] involved," he said.

Part of the Axis of Evil. Said to be developing nuclear weapons. Harbors terrorists. Has links to al Qaeda. May have known about/been involved with 9-11.

Nope, not Iraq, its Iran.

It seems Bush is preparing/pushing for history to repeat, with a slightly different cast. This man is already selling his next war.

I am just as disgusted as the first time around.

Is Iran next?

in my rear view mirror the sun is going down
sinking behind bridges in the road
and i think of all the good things
that we have left undone
and i suffer premonitions
confirm suspicions
of the holocaust to come
the wire that holds the cork
that keeps the anger in
gives way
and suddenly it's day again
the sun is in the east
even though the day is done
two suns in the sunset
hmmmmmmmmm
could be the human race is run
like the moment when your brakes lock
and you slide toward the big truck
and stretch the frozen moments with your fear
and you'll never hear their voices
and you'll never see their faces
you have no recourse to the law anymore
and as the windshield melts
my tears evaporate
leaving only charcoal to defend
finally i understand
the feelings of the few
ashes and diamonds
foe and friend
we were all equal in the end

Indeed.

Pink Floyd - Two Suns in the sunset

The League of Women Voters put out this brief candidate guide. This is best example of non-partisan candidate information I've found so far, and while I'm glad this exists, I think its pretty sad that more information is not available.

I was thinking this morning that I don't really like the changes that have taken place in order to reform campaign finance. I think we're curtailed the freedom of speech. If I support a candidate then I ought to be able to say it, and I ought to be able to say it with a great big billboard if I so desire. This is America. I also think we've seriously violated people's personal privacy. I can find out what campaigns my employees and business partners have donated money to!! This is extremely dangerous and widespread abuse is only a matter of time.

What have we gained from this? Is the present election less corrupt then previous ones? I hardly think so. I haven't heard any explanation of that. I'm still walking into local elections knowing nothing about many of the races. Knowing none of the candidates.

There is a lot of bad speech in our democracy. A lot of signs on street corners that do not reveal anything about a candidate's competence, their voting record, their goals, even their party affiliation. A lot of our democracy goes directly to those who can generate the best name recognition by having the biggest marketing budget and simplest message.

But in my experience the answer to bad speech has always been more speech.

In California a booklet similar to the one the League of Women Voters put together here is put together by the government. Each candidate gets a least a page to state his or her case. Every office and referenda item is covered. You spend an hour looking it over and you walk into the ballot office knowing something about who you are voting for. Sure, people ignore them, chuck them in the trash, but at least its available. At least everyone gets a chance to tell you who they are, regardless of their budget. In Georgia its very hard to find out what all the races are and whose in them even if you really want the information. An uninformed Democracy is not a democracy at all.

Georgia Voter's Guide

Rather boring business bullshit, until I got here:

] A: I'll ask you: What was the last major innovation that you
] saw in printing?
]
] Q: Inkjet?
]
] A: How long ago was that? What's actually going on is
] (that) in each product cycle, they move you to a new
] product, and you have to then buy new cartridges for that
] new product. If you could use your old cartridges, that's
] good, that's a benefit. But fundamentally, you can't use
] your old ones anymore, so now they've moved you to a new
] one. Well that innovation, that R&D, they've spent it to
] lock you in again and to force you to buy ink at ever-
] higher prices. That's what's actually happening. So the
] question is how is that ever going to change? It'll
] change when somebody has a different model.

DELL's new CEO Kevin Rollins

] One of the things I learned in the years I have spent in
] law enforcement at both the federal and local level is
] that witnesses of traumatic events relate few details.
] When people are frightened or otherwise psychologically
] shocked, their minds don't record movies, but snapshots,
] and not many of them, either.
]
] Annie's story has a wealth of detail, so much that I find
] myself disbelieving that she could have been as afraid as
] she says she was.

One Hand Clapping: Criticism of Annie Jacobson's story

Here's the changelog. Lots of options for people without a Magstripe reader, even on Macs and Suns!

Version 1.3 (7-17-2004)

- Added Raw mode (-r) to display the raw binary on a track.
- Now parsing command line options with getopt-like code.
- Windows/ directory added with Project and Workspace files
to make Windows development easier.
- Makefile added to make Linux/DOS developement easier.
- Hardware plans and documents have been added to a directory
called "hardware"
- Added Input Mode (-i) where a bitstream of 1's and 0's from
stdin is passed through the parsing engine. Allows for card
research to be done without a card reader!
- Issuing Bank Names are reported based on CC Prefix.
- bitgen, a command line tool to generate valid Track 2
bitstreams was added. Used with Input mode allows for
meaningful functionality for users without a reader hardware.
- DOS support has been dropped (briefly) while I find a better
compiler than Turbo C++ 1.01 to use. Getting the STL to work
in this older compilers really sucks! It will return.
- mod10 tool has been added. Will validate credit card numbers
using the Luhn algorithm, and will generate valid numbers
from a prefix. Used with bitgen to create valid bitstreams
for Stripe Snoop users without hardware readers.

Cards Added

Georgia Institute of Technology Buzzcard (Insecure)
Georgia Institute of Technology Buzzcard (Secure)
American Automobile Association Membership Card
Kroger Plus Card

Get it here: https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=113229