meta-roj

i just want to drop a brief comment before the boston fiasco begins….

a federal judge has refused to order the city to tear down a caged zone for anti-DNC protesters.

i hope this works out, i really do. but i’ve spoken on the concept of “free speech zones” before, and how they are unamerican. today, i want to make two points.

1) terrorism, and now, the uncontested speculative threat of civil disobedience mis-labeled as terrorism has won a significant victory against america. this ruling, and the resulting compromise of constitutionally-established rights of americans may have been a specific goal of the attackers on 9/11. if not, it’s a great bonus and victory for them. americans have now done more damage to our own freedoms than any attack or war ever could. for all the talk from our leaders that “they” hate freedom, “we” have done more damage to the actual freedoms we supposedly cherish in this nation, and we have done so willingly and out of fear. this week, americans will be in cages, for daring to speak in public. we’re not talking about abstract things like “american ideals” or “patriotism” anymore. we’re talking about concrete barricades and steel fences.

2) this cage sets the stage for massive physical harm and automatic arrest or detention of protesters during the dnc event in boston. if that happens, it should be painfully obvious that we have taken this campaign of fear too far. it will be the act of a police state against a civilian population, and it should be impossible to ignore. my worst fear is that some incident will result in the police using tear gas on people trapped in a confined space with no escape.

we may be “safe” under our missile shield, but we will have compromised everything we cherish in the process.

ben franklin (or so they tell me)

They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security

never in our history – not after pearl harbor, and not even during a civil war – has this nation been closer to making that deal. ben warned us.

thomas jefferson (or so they tell me)

Yes, we did produce a near-perfect republic. But will they keep it? Or will they, in the enjoyment of plenty, lose the memory of freedom? Material abundance without character is the path of destruction.

tj feared for us.

it is now. we have to decide.

composer

liberation organizer

because, through the power of blogs, we can “sign” open letters with a little trackback or comment.

i direct your attention to this open letter, and affirm my beliefs that third parties should not suffer for the agendas of the media, that there are consequences to playing fast and loose with the truth, and that we are all on the record.

there’s hot news for all the cloners out there… move to japan.

Japan Science Council OKs Human Cloning [ap via abc news, july 24, 2004]

Japan’s top science council voted Friday to adopt policy recommendations that would permit the limited cloning of human embryos for scientific research, an official said.

The recommendations would let researchers use and produce cloned human embryos but only for basic research, said Tomohiko Arai, an official at the Cabinet’s Council for Science and Technology Policy.

this is big news for anyone who thought they had a career working on human problems that might be solved by cloning, but somewhere in the back of my head, i had a vague recollection of another story…..

ah! yep. there it is.

No sex please — we’re Japanese [usa today, june 2, 2004]

Nothing is happening with depressing regularity between Japanese men and women these days. Marriages, births and hanky-panky are all spiraling downward with troubling implications for the nation’s future: A sagging birthrate means that fewer working-age people will be around to support a growing population of elderly; a social crisis looms.

no worries. we’ll clone our way out of this problem.

and really, who better to tackle this problem than the japanese? they have a great track record on efficiency and mass production (and a lot fewer bibles-per-capita).

on july 30, 2003, the meta-roj blog went live. just a little short of one year later, this is the 1000th published post.

thanks to everyone that has dropped in along the way…

1st missile interceptor installed in Interior [juneau empire, july 23, 2004]

A 55-foot-long rocket was installed Thursday inside a barren patch of Alaska’s Interior, supplying the first component of a national defense system designed to shoot down enemy missiles.

this goes under “politics” rather than anything useful, because most of the technical material i’ve seen on the bush administration’s missile defense plan says it doesn’t work, which means that it’s more about politics than reality.

the rest of the world seems to take the missile defense project as more of a threat and escalation than a shield.

personally, i question the priorities. since there are only a few countries capable of sending a ballistic missile in our general direction, and we know where they are. to me, it would be stupid to attack the united states that way, because a) the “return address” is obvious and b) the united states has demonstrated willingness to retaliate in overwhelming fashion.

1st missile interceptor installed in Interior [juneau empire, july 23, 2004]

Congress has appropriated more than $10 billion for the missile defense system for the next fiscal year alone and MDA estimates for 2004-2009 run as high as $53 billion. But a group of independent economists estimates the entire system could end up costing as much as $1.2 trillion, [former assistant secretary of operational test and evaluation at the Pentagon, Philip] Coyle said.

that’s a lot of money for something that a) doesn’t work and b) addresses an extremely limited threat. i guess we could be spending that kind of money on protecting “critical infrastructure,” but that would involve moving money from the department of defense to the department of homeland security, i guess. it might actually protect americans from something, but it would really screw up some bureaucrats days, and we wouldn’t want to do that.

there’s another way to look at it…. $1.2 trillion is enough to do 12 iraq wars (at least until the next cost revision….)

Congress Debates $100 Billion Iraq Costs [ap via abc news, july 23, 2004]

At least $100 billion already has been spent or is in the pipeline for the now 16-month-old campaign, according to Defense Department figures.

guitar

electromagnetic

just another freaky thing in the local waters….

Watermen Find Albino Crab in Upper Chesapeake [ap via wtop, with photo]

“I’ve seen some crabs split down the middle with color on one side but none completely white,” Ingledue told The (Easton) Star Democrat.

The crab measured almost seven inches across its back. The shell was translucent enough to watch the water and air sloshing in its gills when it was out of the water.

the star democrat is online, but it’s also registration-blocked, so we’ll mention them, but that’s about it.

the crab will be given to the university of maryland biotechnology institute, so watch there for news on the freak beastie from the bay. they want to breed him, so if you know of any single white females, give them a call….