I say to you, this morning, that if you have never found something so dear and precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren’t fit to live.

You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be, and one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid.

You refuse to do it because you want to live longer. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab or shoot or bomb your house. So you refuse to take a stand.

Well, you may go on and live until you are ninety, but you are just as dead at 38 as you would be at ninety.

And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.

You died when you refused to stand up for right.

You died when you refused to stand up for truth.

You died when you refused to stand up for justice.

DemocracyNow via BoingBoing.

Just a short notice. I discovered a very simple and relatively powerful Internet privacy solution, Ultrasurf, for those of us who may be interested in browsing the Internet in near complete anonymity: hide IP addresses and locations, clean browsing history, cookies & more …

It may be the future of Internet privacy.

This is probably quite feasible supposing that you have enough data and enough CPU/database power. Google has it all (and plenty of power for sure).

I am not quite sure if this undeniable technical step forward is really good news for individual liberties.

Source: The Wall Street Journal.

PETER DECONINCK/AFP/Getty Images

Update on 24-June: It appears that after some time and media pressure, Kimberley admitted that this was not a mere issue of misunderstanding between the tattooist and her. Frightened by her father reaction to her stars, she tried to explain that it was not her fault. But she actually requested 56 stars from the beginning. So, she was lying…

633,048 votes (9:47) become 587,913 votes (13:53)

It seems that everything has already been said about the riots and protests that are currently observed following the presidential elections in Iran.
Up to now, I felt unable to even comment about it. But I wanted to add my own little pebble to the building of putting light onto the events that are probably at the core of a real re-foundation of the Iran nation and society.

Like many others, I have the intense feeling that this is a battle between two factions inside the same political regime. The difference between Mousavi and Ahmadinejad still is more a difference of degree than a difference of nature and even if the results have been rigged by the State direction (see on the right the Iran TV announcing results in favor of Mousavi, then correcting them in favor of Ahmadinejab – while the Ministry of the Interior had already unofficially informed Mousavi of a victory that would come to be quickly denied), the candidates were no less pre-approved before the elections.

Call me pessimistic, but I fear this revolt will not be the revolution awaited by some many people out of Iran.

In the meantime, people are killed while fighting for their liberty. This is exactly the kind of fight that is bringing democracy in a country… in the end.

Sources:

• Michele Roohani
• The Big Picture: Iran’s continued election turmoil (27 photos)
• DotFutureManifesto

© Matt Bors

“Sure, we could all stay home and quietly the results of a blatantly stolen election…”; “But we reject the American way of life!”

You can appreciate it if you read the first paragraph:

No one thought Al Gore would be a loveable president, but, after eight years in the White House, he has gotten truly tiresome. The droning voice, the purchase of an eco-friendly robot dog, the campaign for carbon-free diamonds – all these things were hard to take, and he has been way too smug about reversing global warming. I think we’ve gone too far in the opposite direction, especially in light of the glacier that recently crushed Wasilla.

Go to the Guardian for the rest…

Article 1 

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1948 at Palais de Chaillot, Paris (France). So, tomorrow, this important milestone for Human Rights will be 60-year old. Of course, many people are denied their rights for plenty of reasons.

But this is a fight of every day, this is our fight, a fight to make the world better, a place where every Human Being can live free.

Seth Brau decided to celebrate this 60th anniversary by creating a video where it injected more life in these words, with animated graphics (View in larger size/higher-def here: www.humanrightsactioncenter.org. Created by Seth Brau, Produced by Amy Poncher, Music by Rumspringa courtesy Cantora Records):

B.Obama and J.McCain are impersonating exactly that. The new America is a young President holding high the ideals of Democracy, Liberty, Opportunity and Hope but -already so many others told so- it is not only a victory of African Americans but an enormous example of Democracy put in action by the people of a great country. Who would have thought that a black man would walk into the White House while the people who walked with Martin Luther King are still alive?

Old values -and who could embody them best that John Mc Cain?- were at the center of this election. After Presidential Elections in 2004 where values have been continuously promoted and over-promoted, 2008 comes showing millions of people walking to the polls, oblivious of the age of their democracy and decided to make history with the same impetus as those voting for the first time in countries with much shorter history of liberty and votes.

On September 11, 2001, we were all Americans. Today, I am proud that some people from this great country consider me as a friend.

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• The Scotch Malt Whisky Guide, with an excellent little historic guide to whisky that is perfectly written for those who discover this strong alcohol.
• the web site of the Scotch Whisky Association if you want to share your passion with other amateurs.

But this is not enough for some people (real alcohol geeks). Wired discovered that true US amateurs are pushing sunday afternoon distillery in a country where moonshine is still prohibited. It’s quite easy, and the result is supposed to be very good.

For once, the a… from security will make sure your bags fly securely.

Source: Jon Udell.

Normally, there is a solution. You can modify slightly your website to ensure that if this happens, the image served is not the original one, but a modified one (either a big red X, or a message to the reader). But it is a little difficult to do by hand. A wbe site tool comes handy for this: HTMLbasix – Htaccess Disable Hotlinking Code Generator.

Interestingly, this statement allows to believe that by June 2008 the list will have grown to 1 million terrorists in the US of A. I believe that Americans can be silly, but I doubt that one out of 230 is a dangerous moron attempting to end western civilization next time he or she will take a plane.

I suggest that you have a look at the astonishing list of “unlikely suspects” displayed in this article from ACLU. It includes US Senators and US Congressmen (and their spouses), war heroes, John Does with a common name, dead 9/11 hijackers, foreign presidents (dead as Saddam Hussein or alive like Evo Morales), pop star singers and toddlers.

I am starting to believe that this is (maybe not only) a way to manage a significant part of unemployment. When a society has 1% of its people behind bars, this is becoming not only a marginal management of violence but a strategy to economic management of population. One of the first advantages there is that it has a visible impact on unemployment (jailed people do not look for a job).

Has jail become a nation-wide population control system?

Source : Neatorama.

I have been looking quickly at some of the possible solutions to protect your privacy while exchanging files over the Internet. I found the following ideas:

• Omemo is a recent Spanish development. I tried it and it is very obvious that the program is still in beta. Essentially, I was unable to download a file if it was not very small in size or to upload any. Let’s wait until it works.
• GigaTribe seems a good solution if you are willing to pay for the Premium package. It builds a closed network with your friends, but the standard (free) software is not able to grab files from multiple computers at the same time. So performance is very limited for the free version. GigaTribe3 is said to correct a number of issues some time later in 2008.
• Freenet is rather difficult to use at first, but if you run Thaw, one of the applications provided at installation, you will get a large choice of file downloads and performance while limited is not ridiculous: A few days for 2GB of video, it could be much worse. However, some may be troubled by the kind of data found there: While the common P2P data can be observed, you will also find conspiracy-related information and a quite significant load of pornography and child pornography (normally not found on the more open Internet).

I don’t know where the future of P2P lies, but it is certainly around some of these darknets (networks that are protected from external Peeping Toms). Freenet is supposed to be the best and most secured one, even if it is not perfect (it seems clear that some powerful agencies have setup some Freenet nodes in order to be able to spy the traffic).

I have been amazed at the number of horror stories that I could find lately about their abysmal track record, so here is a short compilation I made just for your your laughs (or cries).

• TSA has opened a blog web site. It was supposed to help passengers. It has been the focus of a lot of attention from Internet users. They recently apologized to the blogesphere (sic) for arbitrary gadget screenings (at least in San Francisco SFO, they required all electronic devices and cable to be removed from bags for screening)
• TSA has a no-fly list of people who should not board airplanes for fear of terrorism. This list is a shame since it contains tens of thousands of names remotely linked to terrorists (if they are dead, like Mohamed Atta known for dying on 911, they do not even get removed from the list) and even very common names are included making the life of thousands of innocent people impossible in airports. Like Sam Adams, 5, probably very dangerous despite his nice smiling little face.
• Speaking of faces, TSA started to train its screeners with some facial expressions that are considered ground for additional screening and interrogation (in a program called SPOT (Screening Passengers by Observation Technique) probably only a thin veil on “let’s stop this guy because I don’t like his face“). Unfortunately, they would not say if you should avoid smiling or making faces to the TSA personel. After that, you immediately think about George Orwell’s 1984 (”facecrime”) and Kafka’s Trial (not to speak of stalinist behavioral crimes). And when you see how untrained the screeners are…
• Speaking about training, should I mention the cases where the agents are so unable to handle your belongings that they drop them on the floor. Don’t mention dropping a T-shirt. Think about pro-photo equipment like here or here.
• TSA and some English goons decided that transporting liquids was a major terrorist danger. Even if it is the milk bottle of Junior, the Coke for Dad or the Perrier for Mom. So, now, liquids in more than 100ml are prohibited from your carry-on luggage (even though it is more or less admitted that the threat was exagerated). Except if they are in a clear plastic bag. What has this to do with security? Does it make a difference between the following two eye mascara sticks?



Images copyright of Crazy Aunt Purl

• Even pilots are annoyed at bullshit “security” procedures that the TSA has put into place. [The linked article has interesting references to British Security officials admitting that the "liquid bomb plot" public statements were overcooked, inaccurate and “unfortunate.”

In the spotlight: Sony Alpha 900 Canon EOS 5D Mk II Nikon D700 FX Download Nero for free

• The TSA web site supposed to help people request their removal from the no-fly list has been demonstrated as a major Internet security risk, it looks more like a scam with all the security errors/snafus than an important US national asset handling personal data.
• Sometimes, you can get stuck on the no-fly list for unobvious reasons. Like artist Ramak Fazel or singer Cat Stevens.

After that, would you be surprised if I told you that:

• There is a web site collecting complaints and horror stories about TSA: TSAcomplaints.com
• Privacy International ranks US, UK, Russia and China in the same "black" category of countries where wishing for privacy is becoming just day-dreaming ("endemic surveillance societies" to quote them).
• Even, according to a story [...] in the London Daily Mail newspaper, the British government has had enough with the “War on Terror” hype. [from Spurgeon Blog]
• I am in no hurry to test the US borders by taking a plane to go and see my American friends. Sorry Veronica, Renata, Bing, Michael, and others.

Of course, Lithium batteries can explode. But they took the additional step of prohibiting them when they are out of the device and contain more than 2g of Lithium…

Photographers leaving for a long trip: Put them in the checked luggage if you do not want to see them ending with fire-arms, knifes, cutters and mineral water bottles (in the junk bin).