skullaria wrote:
Maybe in a world 60 years ago witches were fictional characters, but today there is a large group of people who claim ownership of that term (many of whom I call friend.)

I recall when I was in high school we wrote a play which contained the words "that sucks!" We performed the play for students and parents, who mostly seemed to enjoy it. The next morning we were informed that the school had received widespread complaints from parents about references to oral sex in our play. We had absolutely no idea what they were talking about. Someone literally had to spell it out for us. In retrospect I'm still not sure their outrage makes any sense. It seems more likely that the use of the word "sucks" in a disparaging way is more likely a product of the old expression "sucks eggs" than a reference to oral sex.

For a more clear example, consider the fact that in Italy, giving someone the "thumbs up" literally means the same thing that giving someone "the finger" means here. If you go to Italy, and you are not aware of this, and you give someone the "thumbs up," are you guilty of attempting to offend them? Obviously not.

That fact that you've misinterpreted my words and also taken offense at them does not make me guilty of being offensive. If I did not intend to offend you, then what I said was not offensive. The offense occured in your mind and not in my expression. Someone who has never heard of Wicca (which is, frankly, nearly everyone) cannot possibly be thought guilty of a hate crime for hanging a witch. Such offense is just as ridiculous as conservative christians who oppose the celebration of halloween because they argue that it promotes witchcraft! Halloween is a game for children. Its not serious, and it is silly to take it seriously.

RE: Halloween decoration or hate crime?

Photographic Artist Chris Jordan turns the statistics of consumerism into palpable images in his new photo series.

Please watch this video. From an artistic standpoint, it's irrelevant and the quality of the video belies what the actual work must provoke in person. The statement that it is making, which is what art is really for, is what is important. The last 60 seconds of the video is the most profound, but the whole thing must be watched in order for that last bit to resonate roundly.

Chris Jordan has been posted to MemeStreams before.

Bill Moyers Journal - Chris Jordan

To be sure, time marches on.

Yet for many Californians, the looming demise of the "time lady," as she's come to be known, marks the end of a more genteel era, when we all had time to share.

Following the thread:

The (somewhat dubious) prime symbol of academic knowledge, and more-or-less exclusively masculine educational attainments, was the Classical languages Greek and Latin, to which a great deal of time was devoted in "genteel" boys' education, but which few women studied.

The sheer amount of sewing done by gentlewomen in those days sometimes takes us moderns aback, but it would probably generally be a mistake to view it either as merely constant joyless toiling, or as young ladies turning out highly embroidered ornamental knicknacks to show off their elegant but meaningless accomplishments. Sewing was something to do (during the long hours at home) that often had great practical utility, and that wasn't greatly mentally taxing, and could be done sitting down while engaging in light conversation, or listening to a novel being read.

For women of the "genteel" classes the goal of non-domestic education was thus often the acquisition of "accomplishments", such as the ability to draw, sing, play music, or speak modern (i.e. non-Classical) languages (generally French and Italian). Though it was not usually stated with such open cynicism, the purpose of such accomplishments was often only to attract a husband; so that these skills then tended to be neglected after marriage.

Time of day calling it quits at AT&T

For a minute or so, it's just Coles being a good samaritan, trying to stop a potentially violent confrontation and demanding that one of the men who picks up a rock put it down. It's already extremely tense by the time that someone starts pointing at the masked protestors and chanting "policier!" Coles demands that the men take off their masks, and the majority of the crowd join him––some even reach for the bandannas themselves––and accuse the masked men of being cops, police provocateurs hired to start a riot. When Coles actually looks at one of the men dead-on and says, "you're a police officer," the masked men all freeze, seemingly dumb-struck. And then they kind of start being aggressive again, until a little over two minutes in, when there's the weirdest police takedown you'll probably ever see.

Interesting video... I nearly posted it yesterday. If you were a protestor holding a rock, which is clearly a violent jesture, would you walk toward the police line for protection when the crowd starts chanting at you, still holding the rock? Don't miss the picture where the "protestors" and police are all wearing the same boots. These kinds of accusations are made often but I've never seen such clear evidence. Fortunately the mainstream press in Canada appears to be picking up on it.

Just remember that authorities never abuse power, which is why we don't need checks and balances. Checks and balances kill Americans.

Torontoist: Bon Cop, Bad Cop

The closest Young comes to explaining to me why he created Cryptome is this: "I'm a pretty fucking angry guy." He describes it as a public education project. But for every hard data point he offers, there's the ever-present admonishment that secrecy corrupts everything. "We caution people, don't believe anything we publish," he says. "We're totally untrustworthy. We may be a sting operation, we may be working for the Feds. If you trust us, you're stupid." It's like a nihilist art project: Provide your readers with more than 40,000 files of data the government doesn't want you to have, data that exposes the lies of the powerful, and then remind them that you can never, ever know for sure who is lying.

Radar Online : Inside Cryptome, the website the CIA doesn't want you to see

The Department of Homeland Security is hoping to overcome that limitation by automating the identification of individuals whose behavior suggests they pose a threat via a program dubbed "Hostile Intent."

Pretty soon the "Thought Police" will be able to arrest you for a "Thought Crime".

The software is pretty cool. So is the mood driven PONG. [ Video Link ]

But the spectrum of human emotion can not be lumped into a few categories.

Donnie: Life isn't that simple. I mean who cares if Ling Ling returns the wallet and keeps the money? It has nothing to do with either fear or love.
Kitty Farmer: Fear and love are the deepest of human emotions.
Donnie: Okay. But you're not listening to me. There are other things that need to be taken into account here. Like the whole spectrum of human emotion. You can't just lump everything into these two categories and then just deny everything else!

Homeland Security tests automated 'Hostile Intent' detector

KH:

We do not publicize how often the no-fly system stops people you would not want on your flight. Several times a week would low-ball it.

Almost 20,000 False Positives:

The Justice Department's proposed budget for 2008 reveals for the first time how often names match against the database, reporting that there were 19,967 "positive matches" in 2006.

19,967 / 52 = 383.9
What that really translates to approximately 350 people per week inconvenienced. If they were arrested, deported, or their plot foiled we would of heard about it in the news.

But remeber what KH said about why they use the no-fly list:

Because it works.

Schneier on Security: Conversation with Kip Hawley, TSA Administrator (Part 3)

A sampling:

Most of it doesn’t matter.

Waiting to do something until you can be sure of doing it exactly right means waiting for ever.

Trying to please other people is largely a futile activity.

Everything takes twice as long as you plan for and produces results about half as good as you hoped.

See also Augustine's Laws.

Things I wish I’d known when I was younger

Today, of course, the United States finds itself in much the same position as Britain in 1781. Distracted and diminished by an irrelevant, costly and probably unwinnable war in Iraq, America could ultimately find itself challenged by countries like China and India.

by

Michael Rose, a retired British Army general, commanded the United Nations forces in the former Yugoslavia from 1994 to 1995.

This is an interesting perspective on the American Revolutionary War that you don't hear often over here. Adam originally recommended it but he linked the second page, so I'm linking the first instead.

The defeat that made Britain great - International Herald Tribune

This is a really great article. Maybe the history and conclusions are already familiar to people who read MemeStreams but it wraps them up very clearly.

Today's global liberal democratic order faces two challenges. The first is radical Islam -- and it is the lesser of the two challenges. Although the proponents of radical Islam find liberal democracy repugnant, and the movement is often described as the new fascist threat, the societies from which it arises are generally poor and stagnant. They represent no viable alternative to modernity and pose no significant military threat to the developed world. It is mainly the potential use of weapons of mass destruction -- particularly by nonstate actors -- that makes militant Islam a menace.

The second, and more significant, challenge emanates from the rise of nondemocratic great powers: the West's old Cold War rivals China and Russia, now operating under authoritarian capitalist, rather than communist, regimes. Authoritarian capitalist great powers played a leading role in the international system up until 1945. They have been absent since then. But today, they seem poised for a comeback.

Noteworthy says: "I am skeptical of the idea that Russia is poised for a comeback. Putin and his government may be poised, but the people are not. Russia will have a political role, due to its Security Council seat, but economically, what does it have to offer?"

I don't agree. I think the article's analysis is right on. Admitedly, Russia and China have a long way to go before they rival the United States economically. There may be certain energy constraints that make a rivalry difficult to acheive. The core question is at what point does their economy enable them to challenge the US militarily. I don't think military challenge requires economic parity.

I would go one further than this article. I think that China and Russia are already challenging the US, and that Islamic militancy is in some respects part of that challenge. Who backs Hezbollah? Syria? Well, who backs Iran? Who is responsible for Darfur? China and Russia enable Iran to create instability in Iraq and Israel. China is the problem, and the solution can only come through China. I think its quite possible that we're not really at war with militant Islam. We're in a proxy war with China. Things are actually not that different than they were decades ago.

I also think this article underscores why what happens here is so important... Why battles over government surveillance, habeas corpus, checks and balances and the like really matter. They matter because the United States is the great liberal democratic power. There are a large number of people in this country who don't like the liberal part of liberal democracy. People who hate the constraints that the Constitution places on the exercise of majoritarian power and are eager to tear those constraints apart ... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

The Return of Authoritarian Great Powers | Foreign Affairs