Congressman Markey,

While I'm not one of your constituents, your statements and actions often have an impact that reaches beyond your district. Yesterday you were quoted in several news media outlets as having called for the arrest of Christopher Soghoian, a PHD candidate at the University of Indiana Bloomington, because he created a web page that generates phoney airline boarding passes. As you are likely aware, your call was answered by the FBI who reportedly broke into Soghoian's house last night and seized all of his computer equipment.

I am a professional computer security researcher. I work for one of the worlds largest IT companies. My job involves finding vulnerabilities in software systems and getting them fixed. Responsible vendors are usually very responsive and willing to work with my team when we contact them with information about problems with their products. Through this process we are able to locate and repair vulnerabilities in IT infrastructure before the bad guys can find them and exploit them. However, there are always a few unsophisticated people who seek to shoot the messenger instead of dealing with the flaw.

Christopher Soghoian is one of the good guys. He is not a criminal and he is not enabling criminals. He did not create the vulnerability in the boarding pass screening process. This problem has existed for years, and it has been noted in other quarters, most recently by Sen. Chuck Schumer. However, the problem hasn't been fixed. Soghoian's website was intended to demonstrate how simple this is, and he has clearly and repeatedly stated that his intent in creating the site was to raise awareness about the problem so that it will be fixed. His website does not make this much easier than standard desktop publishing software available on anyone's personal computer.

Your call for his arrest, and the subsiquent events that have unfolded over the past 24 hours, have done serious harm to the national security of the United States. You could have simply contacted him, informed him of the legal problems that one could face for operating such a website, and discussed shutting it down. By choosing instead to prosecute him you are sending a message to security professionals in this country that if you observe a problem with national security policies or practices and make people aware of those problems in good faith so that they might be fixed, the government will treat you as an enemy and will prosecute you if possible. The inevitable result will be that people will hold their tongues, and problems will persist until they are discovered by someone who has malicious intent.

I strongly urge you to reconsider your position on this matter. The current course of action is not in the best interests of this country.

Respectfully,
Tom Cross

My Letter to Ed Markey

A glimpse of the remarkable father-son bond of Dick and Rick Hoyt, and their inspirational journey together in a triathlon and life itself.

"Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars--all in the same day."

Can

The program will air on C-SPAN 1 at 8PM EST (7PM CST) on Saturday, July 29th and then air again for the West Coast at 11pm EST (10pm CST).

...

I've been a subscriber to Alex Jones' website for the last two years. I've seen most of the presentations from this conference. It's fairly amazing to me that CSPAN is airing some of the talks.

I know 9/11 conspiracies are still a hot button topic, but nothing is going to be easier that setting your Tivo's to record this and spending a couple of hours out of your life to at least hear what the people on the other side of the fence are saying.

I've been lambasted for my views in the past on Memestreams and have pretty much given up trying to talk about my research here. You have to arrive at your own conclusions. I've been equated with people who believe the towers didn't really collapse and were just special effects and Holocaust deniers in the same breath (thank you for that Elonka, it made my day let me tell you.) There are too many unanswered questions about 9/11 for me though, so I press on with research.

Still, this should be an easy pick. I really believe you should check it out. You can even watch CSPAN online if you don't have cable TV (like me.)

Would love to hear back from all of you that choose to watch it and tell me what you thought.

C-Span Airing Of L.A. Conference Shows Mainstreaming Of 9/11 Truth

Dagmar wrote:
Someone's basically got a very interesting video feedback loop protection going on a table in some nightclub.

Talk about setting a mantrap for people on hallucinogens...

Messed around with some similar things in Linux last year:

http://effectv.sourceforge.net/

http://waterworks.sourceforge.net/

There's a lot of good code out there. A bunch of pd (kind of an open source MAX/MSP) stuff that I haven't yet messed with as well that looks like it could pull this off no prob.

Wouldn't surprise me if they're using MAX/MSP under the hood for these installations.

RE: Better Reality Through Technology (demonstrations!)

Heliodisplay images are not holographic although they are free-space, employing a rear projection system in which images are captured onto a nearly invisible plane of transformed air. What the viewer sees is floating mid-air image or video. These projected images and video are two-dimensional, (i.e. planar) but appear 3D since there is no physical depth reference. While conventional displays have the benefit of being attached to a physical substrate, Heliodisplay projections are suspended in air, so you will notice some waviness to the quality of the projections.

...

No telling how much this costs, but yeah, I want one. Hooked up to an R2D2 droid.

Heliodisplay: Free Floating Images

finethen wrote:

I agree this problem is complex and filled with propaganda on both sides. But you owe it to yourself to take a look at both sides of the arguement and realize that deportation/ fences/ a permanent lower class is not the answer to a problem that is (at least partly) the result of a hundred years of U.S. interference in Latin America. I sure don't have the solution, but I know that blind hatred and scapegoating is not it.

I read that study you are referring to. A few points:

* The study uses 2000 population numbers, but 2003 wage data. That is disingenuous and skews the numbers, leading to higher figures of purported tax payments. Say there is a hypothetical population of 100,000 illegals in 2000, earning a total of $1,000,000,000, for a total of $10,000 per capita. Wages rise over time, lets say between 2000 and 2003 there was a 12.1 % increase. the ECI numbers that are available. I understand you can't really equate the Employment Cost Index numbers with the work that illegals perform, since they are, well, undocumented and no one really knows what their realized wage increases have been over those years. But ECI numbers are a benchmark that is generally recognized so I will use them.

If you don't factor the growth of the illegal population between 2000 and 2003, in 2003 you have a total of $1,121,000,000, or $11,210 per capita. That's $1210 more per person, thus more income to reflect more purported taxes paid, just by using lower population numbers with higher wage numbers.

A more fair study would not misrepresent these figures, or at least try harder to extrapolate population data to fit more closely with the wage data time frames. Yes, these things do matter.

* The study emulates property tax payments by saying that rent payments count. I almost laughed out loud at that. Imagine if I tried to claim on my income taxes that the rent I pay right now somehow counts as a property tax payment, and I tried to itemize that on my income tax return. Complete fabrication. If there were no illegals here renting houses or apartments, those houses and apartments would be rented to someone else. Seriously, I cannot believe this was included. This one point alone is enough to make me question the entire study.

* The study states "Studies have shown numerous income tax compliance rates for that population, several ranging from 50% to 70%." They use the 50% figure. Okay, what are these studies? Without a reference, this number is just a number pulled out of thin air to me.

* They do at least mention remittances. Unfortunately, I cannot find any data about the percentage of illegal immigrant remittances versus legal. All public figures I find are an aggregate total to each country.

"Another caveat to the use of national average income is the lack of data on remittances. Studies have shown that many immigrant workers send a portion of their inc... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

RE: How can Illegal Immigration help our Homeless situation?

Op-ed article from Kuro5hin last year.

...

Adolph Hitler is the face of evil for most Americans, so much so that what we think of when we say "Hitler" is a caricature of the real man. The real man was just a man. Hitler did not invent anti-Semitism in Germany. Hitler did not invent militarism in Germany. Hitler did not invent concentration camps. Hitler did not invent pre-emptive war. He was just a man, a small and insecure man who gave voice to what his fellow Germans and Austrians would have said if they had dared voice their opinions but did not dare say because it was not politically correct.

...

On this day, Hitler's birthday, let us reflect upon evil and recognize it for what it is: something that lives in the souls of nations, not in the souls of politicians. For politicians are nothing more than mirrors reflecting what the people desire in their heart of hearts. All Hitler did was voice the darkness in the soul of the German nation -- he did not invent it. Hitler never personally killed a Jew. Hitler never personally marched across a border to invade another nation. Without the willing participation of the German people in the evil that was the Third Reich, Hitler would have been just another failed artist in Vienna muttering slurs against Jews over a brewski at the local beer hall. But the German people basked in the reflected glow of hate and prejudice, their own hate and prejudice reflecting back from the mirror that was Hitler, and gleefully participated in the destruction of millions. If Hitler the man had never existed, they would have found another man in his place, another demagogue willing to give voice to the darkness in their souls.

Adolf Hitler - Date of birth: April 20, 1889

I had never heard of the SCO before. This looks like an interesting marriage. Wonder if this is part of the reason a lot of bad China press is now hitting mainstream news. I'm thinking about the films of the Chinese government seizing people's homes and land.

A few selections from the article:

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which maintained it had no plans for expansion, is now changing course. Mongolia, Iran, India and Pakistan, which previously had observer status, will become full members. SCO's decision to welcome Iran into its fold constitutes a political statement. Conceivably, SCO would now proceed to adopt a common position on the Iran nuclear issue at its summit meeting June 15.

...

The SCO, an Intergovernmental organization whose working languages are Chinese and Russian, was founded in Shanghai on June 15, 2001 by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The SCO's change of heart appears set to involve the organization in Iran's nuclear battle and other ongoing regional issues with the United States.

...

A People's Daily commentary on April 13 read: "The real intention behind the US fueling the Iran issue is to prompt the UN to impose sanctions against Iran, and to pave the way for a regime change in that country. The US's global strategy and its Iran policy emanate out of its decision to use various means, including military means, to change the Iranian regime. This is the US's set target and is at the root of the Iran nuclear issue."

...

By virtue of SCO membership, Iran can partake of the various SCO projects, which in turn means access to technology, increased investment and trade, infrastructure development such as banking, communication, etc. It would also have implications for global energy security.

...

A third aspect of the SCO decision to expand its membership involves regional integration processes. Sensing that the SCO was gaining traction, Washington had sought observer status at its summit meeting last June, but was turned down. This rebuff - along with SCO's timeline for a reduced American military presence in Central Asia, the specter of deepening Russia-China cooperation and the setbacks to US diplomacy in Central Asia as a whole - prompted a policy review in Washington.

China, Russia welcome Iran into the fold

The page speaks for itself.

The Gatorade Conspiracy

Phil Valentine is the most outspoken critic of illegal immigration in Nashville. He has a daily talk show in Nashville and writes weekly columns for the state's largest newspaper.

Meme'd for reference.

Newspaper Columns by Phil Valentine