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Friday, January 03, 2003
I'm no luddite, but Genetically Modified food really scares me. This article in The Nation frightens me that much more.
Read how Biotech firms let their biopharmaceutical crops get away from them and contaminate a food source soybean crop. Wow. Now tell me why haven't these problems been reported in mainstream media?
posted by Brett Webb 12:48 PM
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Friday, December 20, 2002
Fun
Free stickers!
Silly Soy Sauce
Homegrown propaganda
Excuse our embarrassing government, please
"DOW, BURSON-MARSTELLER CLAMP DOWN ON FAKE WEBSITES
But companies find it harder to stifle criticism
Two giant companies are struggling to shut down parody websites that
portray them unfavorably, interrupting internet use for thousands in
the process, and filing a lawsuit that pits the formidable legal
department of PR giant Burson-Marsteller against a freshman at
Hampshire College.
The activists behind the fake corporate websites have fought back, and
obtained substantial publicity in the process.
Fake websites have been used by activists before, but Dow-Chemical.com
and BursonMarsteller.com represent the first time that such websites
have successfully been used to publicize abuses by specific
corporations.
A December 3 press release originating from one of the fake sites,
Dow-Chemical.com, explained the "real" reasons that Dow could not take
responsibility for the Bhopal catastrophe, which has resulted in an
estimated 20,000 deaths over the years
(http://www.theyesmen.org/dow/#release). "Our prime responsibilities
are to the people who own Dow shares, and to the industry as a whole,"
the release stated. "We cannot do anything for the people of Bhopal."
The fake site immediately received thousands of outraged e-mails
(http://www.dowethics.com/r/about/corp/email.htm).
Within hours, the real Dow sent a legal threat to Dow-Chemical.com's
upstream provider, Verio, prompting Verio to shut down the fake Dow's
ISP for nearly a day, closing down hundreds of unrelated websites and
bulletin boards in the process.
The fake Dow website quickly resurfaced at an ISP in Australia.
(http://theyesmen.org/dow/#threat)
In a comical anticlimax, Dow then used a little-known domain-name rule
to take possession of Dow-Chemical.com
(http://theyesmen.org/dow/#story), another move which backfired when
amused journalists wrote articles in newspapers from The New York
Times to The Hindu in India (http://theyesmen.org/dow/#links), and
sympathetic activists responded by cloning and mirroring the site at
many locations, including http://www.dowethics.com/,
http://www.dowindia.com/ and, with a twist,
http://www.mad-dow-disease.com/. Dow continues to play whack-a-mole
with these sites (at least one ISP has received veiled threats).
Burson-Marsteller, the public relations company that helped to "spin"
Bhopal, has meanwhile sued college student Paul Hardwin
(phardwin@yurt.org) for putting up a fake Burson-Marsteller
site, http://www.bursonmarsteller.com/ , which recounted how the PR
giant helped to downplay the Bhopal disaster. Burson-Marsteller's suit
against Hardwin will be heard next week by the World Intellectual
Property Organization (http://reamweaver.com/bmwipo/wipo.html).
Hardwin, unable to afford a lawyer, has composed a dryly humorous
57-page rebuttal to the PR giant's lawsuit
(http://www.reamweaver.com/bmwipo/response.htm#reality). On page 7,
for instance, the student notes that Burson-Marsteller's "stated goal
is 'to ensure that the perceptions which surround our clients and
influence their stakeholders are consistent with reality.'" Hardwin
goes on to assert that his satirical domain is doing precisely that,
by publicizing "academic and journalistic materials about
Burson-Marsteller's involvement with and relationship to, for example,
Philip Morris and the National Smoker's Alliance, a consumer front
group designed to create the appearance of public support for
big-tobacco policies; Union Carbide and the deaths of 20,000 people
following the 1984 disaster in Bhopal; and political regimes such as
that of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and more recently Saudi
Arabia following the events of September 11; and to properly associate
them with the relevant Trademark so that they may be understood
accordingly by Internet users."
In response to the suit's claim that "a substantial degree of goodwill
is associated with [the Burson-Marstellar Trademark]" Hardwin offers
much "evidence to the contrary" including "a newspaper headline in
which the Complainant is characterized as 'the Devil.'"
The primary goal of RTMark (http://rtmark.com/) is to publicize
corporate subversion of the democratic process. Just like other
corporations, it achieves its aims by any and all means at its
disposal. RTMark has previously helped to publicize websites against
political parties (http://rtmark.com/othersites.html#fpo), political
figures (http://www.rtmark.com/bush.html), and entities like the World
Trade Organization (http://www.gatt.org/) and the World Economic Forum
(http://www.world-economic-forum.com/).
posted by susan farrell 11:58 PM
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Wednesday, December 04, 2002
Look at this and
this then get on over to
get your war on and
read the current issue
then go see the author soon if you're in LA, SF, WA or OR
More real news:
guerrillanews.com
tompaine.com
prwatch.org/spin
gregpalast.com
sf.indymedia.org
Bill of Rights Defense Committee
Geek.com Geek News - Pentagon confirms development of "Big Brother" test database
Some real interesting stuff about halfway in.
Contact your congress persons and find out what the hell they are doing here:
congress.org
Security Hole Affects Real* Players
Any port you open can be an open backdoor. Be choosy about what you install and keep it upgraded.
posted by susan farrell 8:09 PM
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Tuesday, November 26, 2002
Interesting Finds
http://www.capsite.net/
with NEW pictures of She1 works and interview.
The International Children's Digital Library
Rocketbox Comics - A Resource for the Web Comics Community
Planet Ark environmental news
DjVu Editions free digital books, reader
Book of Visions - an index of socially innovative ideas and publications
Technology Review - The Conservation Bomb - overpopulation didn't happen yet
How the IMF messed up Argentina
theARTproject - Artists express 9/11 tragedies
Fallacies - One of the best things I ever learned. How to spot a bad argument. How to reason logically. Highly recommended reading.
If you have to use Outlook Express, disable html with noHTML for $20.
The Chimera Project - Mac OSX browser - simple, small, fast. You could wait a few months; it's still in beta. Or help them get the bugs out of it by using it now.
Windows XP Shows the Direction Microsoft is Going. Find out why you don't want to go there.
PCWorld.com - 'Critical' Outlook Express Hole Plugged: another upgrade for you.
Participate in The People's Investigation of 9/11
http://www.911pi.com/
Read something Ratical
Augmenting Our Perspectives of 11 September 2001
pdf version print out
txt version PDA
Contents* The 9-11 Bombings are not * Domestic Terrorism:
Acts of War Homeland Security
The 9-11 Bombings are Paving the Way for Our
Crimes Against Humanity Constitutional Dictatorship* Rejecting the Foundations * How the War on Terrorism
of International Law Affects Access
U.S. "Unsigns" International to Information and
Criminal Court Treaty the Public's Right to Know
* Making Nuclear War Thinkable * Domestic Terrorism: General
Might-Makes-Right Ashcroft's "Enemy Citizens,"
Instead of Rule of Law Martial Law and Internment Camps* Bush I: * Domestic Terrorism: The Big Lie
Crimes Against Humanity, The "War" On Terrorism
Rejection of Rule of Law is a Total Fabrication* Since 1991, a World Trade * 9-11 Timeline: minute-by-minute
Center's worth of Iraqi children Stand Down from Incompetence
continue to die every month or Complicity?* U.S. Development of Biological * Official 9-11 Misrepresentations
Weapons - Watch What We Say, Reclaiming Our Voice
Not What We Do and Liberties* Domestic Terrorism: * Footnotes
The "USA PATRIOT Act" of 2001
Serial Assaults on * References
Constitutional Liberties
| * The October 2001 "USA PATRIOT Act" is turning the U.S. into a |
| permanent police state. It vastly expands the structures of |
| government secrecy and surveillance, utterly relinquishes any |
| semblance of due process, categorically violates the First, |
| Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments, and unacceptably |
| mixes aspects of criminal investigations with aspects of |
| immigration and foreign intelligence laws, while it |
| simultaneously extinguishes the accountability of elected and |
| non-elected government officials. |
What does it say about our society and culture that since 1991, a
"World-Trade-Center's worth of Iraqi children continue to die every
month" as a direct result of the crimes against humanity perpetrated
under the direction of the last three Presidents of the United
States? What does this fact mean to each and every person in this
nation-state who pays annual taxes, the largest portion of which goes to
the ongoing expansion of the United States military? As tax-
paying members of the United States, can we reconcile our culpability
for these Iraqi deaths with the deaths of people one year ago in New
York, Washington D.C., and Pennsylvania?
--David Ratcliffe,
Augmenting Our Perspectives of 11 September 2001
posted by susan farrell 11:35 PM
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Thursday, November 14, 2002
Big Brother: Homeland Security Bill
Read this immediately and write to your Senator to stop the madness. This is the most important kind of emergency, so don't think that someone else will make it all okay. We must stop this legislation, because if the system is put in place we may never be able to dismantle it later. It could make Stalin's Russia look like a free country compared to the US.
"November 14, 2002
You Are a Suspect
By WILLIAM SAFIRE
WASHINGTON - If the Homeland Security Act is not amended before passage, here is what will happen to you:
Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend ? all these transactions and communications will go into what the Defense Department describes as "a virtual, centralized grand database."
To this computerized dossier on your private life from commercial sources, add every piece of information that government has about you ? passport application, driver's license and bridge toll records, judicial and divorce records, complaints from nosy neighbors to the F.B.I., your lifetime paper trail plus the latest hidden camera surveillance ? and you have the supersnoop's dream: a "Total Information Awareness" about every U.S. citizen.
This is not some far-out Orwellian scenario. It is what will happen to your personal freedom in the next few weeks if John Poindexter gets the unprecedented power he seeks."
more in the article at the URL above.
posted by susan farrell 12:03 PM
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Monday, November 11, 2002
It's too late to do this, but it still needs to be done...
"The turntables might wobble, but they don't fall down."
Run-DMC's King of Rock was the first hip-hop album I ever bought. Run-DMCs Raising Hell tour was the first big rap show I ever saw (with the Beastie Boys--before they had their License to Ill, LL Cool J and Whodini..damn!!). To say Run-DMC has had a huge impact on my life is an understatement.
I'm just like millions of other people that had Run-DMC usher hip-hop into their lives on a full time basis. Their music is the blueprint and holds up better than most from that era.
Jay, you'll be missed.
Check out a Memorial by Mone, Tlone, Cavs, The Bronx
posted by Brett Webb 9:07 AM
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Friday, November 01, 2002
I can't believe it's November already
There is so much good stuff in our November update that I can't cover it all here, but I've gotta apologize to Nasty and some of the other French contributors for the 6 year delay in publishing their stuff. I keep thinking I've cleaned up my image in-box and keep finding [very] old surprises. Old but new are the ancient images from LA, thanks to Bravo. The unassuming Bristol link hides a trove of amusing stencils and interesting things. The unlikely "Ciber Stargass" has some very serious skills. Buford grapples with verbs until they sing in this month's Byline. This month's featured artist lineup is pretty impressive as well: Shok1, Rezine, Cyber Stargass, Fyse, Pryme, Nasty, Other, Moshe (first writer shown from Israel) ... and those are just the new additions. The Mac and Siloette kick ass and take names, while Denz shows us his recent sketch exhibition. Don't miss The Mac's portrait of Dondi.
a Bristol treasure
Pumpkin bomb for Halloween by Skeam
War is Hell
AlterNet: Another Gulf War Vet Opens Fire is a story every man of draft age should read. War, no matter how short, can ruin the rest of your life in pretty spectacular ways.
Here's an article worth reading about Bush wars, even if you have to make up one more registration.
And if all else fails, there's always the Joy of Revolution.
But first try your hand at home-grown propaganda.
Old-School NYC trains needed for archive
The people behind the New York City Trains Mid-80s website (Cat 22 CTK and
Gio) are expanding the photo collection. They are looking for photos of
trains made during the mid-80s in NYC. With this expansion they will
try to complete the missing parts of New York graffiti history. If you
have any material you would like to see published, please contact the
webmaster at gio@kabelfoon.nl
BBC did some feature recently about graffiti. I can't tell what it is because it's all in Real Audio. Maybe you'll enjoy it though, if you're already set up for RA.
Ruskig (Sweden) has a new site.
Diagnostics
Check your Windows computer for parasites here.
posted by susan farrell 12:14 AM
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