Sorry, this is three weeks old. But it’s a gooder. Missed it over the holidays. More hilarity ensues over at the great We the Robots comic strip.
AuthorFell
Travelers at Sea-Tac and dozens of other major airports across America are being scrutinized by teams of TSA behavior-detection officers specially trained to discern the subtlest suspicious behaviors.
[…]
TSA officials will not reveal specific behaviors identified by the program–called SPOT (Screening Passengers by Observation Technique)–that are considered indicators of possible terrorist intent.
But a central task is to recognize microfacial expressions–a flash of feelings that in a fraction of a second reflects emotions such as fear, anger, surprise or contempt, said Carl Maccario, who helped start the program for TSA.
“In the SPOT program, we have a conversation with (passengers) and we ask them about their trip,” said Maccario from his office in Boston. “When someone lies or tries to be deceptive, … there are behavior cues that show it. … A brief flash of fear.”
Let me quote from George Orwell’s, Nineteen Eighty-Four (Part 1, Chapter 5):
He did not know how long she had been looking at him, but perhaps for as much as five minutes, and it was possible that his features had not been perfectly under control. It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself-anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offence. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime, it was called.
via America’s heroes at Daily Kos ? la Making Light
This may come as a shock if you’re one of the fifty percent of Americans who believes in ESP, but it turns out that psychic powers don’t show up in fMRI brain scans. A group of Harvard researchers scanned the brains of people who were receiving mental imagery from their relatives in another room, and discovered that . . . well, nothing happened. The best part is how they tested “precognition.”
According to a release from Harvard:
To study whether or not ESP exists, Moulton and Kosslyn presented participants with two types of visual stimuli: ESP stimuli and non-ESP stimuli. [Samuel Moulton is a graduate student in the department of psychology at Harvard –ed.] These two types of stimuli were identical with one exception: ESP stimuli were not only presented visually, but also were presented telepathically, clairvoyantly, and precognitively to participants.
To present stimuli telepathically, the researchers showed the photographs to the participants’ identical twin, relative, romantic partner, or friend, who was seated in another room. To present stimuli clairvoyantly, the researchers displayed the photographs on a distant computer screen. And to present stimuli precognitively, the researchers showed participants the photographs again in the future.
Does this conclusively prove that ESP does not exist” “No,” says Moulton. “You cannot affirm the null hypothesis. But at the same time, some null results are stronger than others. This is the best evidence to date against the existence of ESP. Perhaps most important, this study offers scientists a new way to study ESP that avoids the pitfalls of past approaches.”
How do you show something to somebody “again in the future”? Even though the brain scans revealed that nothing happens when you do any of this stuff, the Harvard researchers still have hope. They say this doesn’t conclusively prove ESP does not exist.
Read the press release
Was reading my new issue of Print — a design magazine I subscribe to — and the new issue is dedicated to “global graphics that inform, incite and inspire.” Anyone interested in propaganda might wanna check it out, as design has played a huge part in swaying public opinion for well over a century now.
On pg 72 (Print, Feb 2008), in “From Despotism to Destination,” Ben Carmichael writes about rebranding nations. He exposes American propaganda in the Middle East:
Countries that try to fake an image are countries that court disgrace — which is precisely what the U.S. got as a result of a disastrous recent campaign. Shortly after September 11, 2001, Secretary of State Colin Powell hired Ogilvy & Mather veteran Charlotte Beers to launch a pro-American advertising and public relations effort in the Middle East. As Powell put it, the goal was “to rebrand American foreign policy.” As a part of her “Shared Values” campaign, in 2002 Beers launched Hi magazine, meant for modern Arabic youth, Radio Sawa, an Arabic-language radio station, debuted the same year, and Alhurra, an Arabic-language satellite TV station, went on the air in 2004. Both are funded by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, formerly known as the United States Information Agency. So negative was Arab countries’ reaction to Beers’s programs that she left in 2003 before many of them got off the ground, though Radio Sawa and Alhurra are still on the air. Her successor, Margaret Tutwiler, lasted five months; Karen Hughes, who remained in office for two and a half years, announced her resignation on Halloween.
Karen Parfitt Hughes (born December 27, 1956) is a Republican politician from the state of Texas. She served as the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs in the U.S. Department of State with the rank of ambassador. She resides in Austin, Texas.
Karen Hughes To Work on The World’s View of U.S.
Can Karen Hughes help US image abroad?
Charlotte Beers (born July 26, 1935 in Beaumont, Texas) is an American businesswoman and former Under Secretary of State.
She was the first female vice-president at the JWT advertising firm, then CEO of Tatham-Laird & Kudner until 1992, and finally CEO of Ogilvy & Mather until 1996. In 1997, Fortune magazine placed her on the cover of their first issue to feature the most powerful women in America, for her achievements in the advertising industry. In 1999, Beers received the “Legend in Leadership Award” from the Chief Executive Leadership Institute of the Yale School of Management.
From October 2001 until March 2003, she worked for the Bush Administration administration as the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
Bush’s Muslim propaganda chief quits
The invasion of Iraq hasn’t begun, but the U.S. marketing machine has been going strong
Aside from noting a few critical mistakes that they seem to have made with their Middle East propaganda efforts, it’s just that public image abroad is flagrant propaganda maintained by really old Republican Texan women. Ugh.
I came across Hughes name a second time in two days in the Washington Post article having to do with “Persistence of Myths Could Alter Public Policy Approach“:
Similarly, many in the Arab world are convinced that the destruction of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 was not the work of Arab terrorists but was a controlled demolition; that 4,000 Jews working there had been warned to stay home that day; and that the Pentagon was struck by a missile rather than a plane.
Those notions remain widespread even though the federal government now runs Web sites in seven languages to challenge them. Karen Hughes, who runs the Bush administration’s campaign to win hearts and minds in the fight against terrorism, recently painted a glowing report of the “digital outreach” teams working to counter misinformation and myths by challenging those ideas on Arabic blogs.
Klint already posted the surveillance state surveys. With the U.K. and the U.S. sadly sagging on the bottom of the list of Western nations, and the top three leading with only barely-adequate privacy laws, the Western world is in a bad way. Interestingly, Eastern European states are doing much better over the years. Perhaps it’s a cyclical thing, where we’ve taken for granted the freedoms afforded to us in the past. We’re not letting them slip away and those that had to fight for theirs more recently, such as Ukraine, are pushing their governments into responsible formats.
I’ve been meaning to post these others, but have been busy till now:
Dreams: Night School
A hundred years after Freud, one man may have figured out why we dream. You’ll never think the same way about nightmares again.
via Psychology Today
Persistence of Myths Could Alter Public Policy Approach
When University of Michigan social psychologist Norbert Schwarz had volunteers read the CDC flier, however, he found that within 30 minutes, older people misremembered 28 percent of the false statements as true. Three days later, they remembered 40 percent of the myths as factual.
via the Washington Post
American book publishers lobbying to get rid of libraries
Of all the dangerous and dot-complex problems that American publishers face in the near future — economic downturns, competition for leisure time, piracy — perhaps the most explosive one could be libraries. Publishers and librarians are squaring off for a battle royal over the way electronic books and journals are lent out from libraries and over what constitutes fair use of written material.
Grossly oversimplified: Publishers want to charge people to read material; librarians want to give it away.
via the Washington Post
Map of Surveillance Societies Around the World
As you can see, even with Canada topping the list personal freedoms, we’re still only barely in the middle of the list of where we could be. And our Harper Government is only sucking at the teste of Bush, so we’ll slowly be adopting more crap soon. But if this is what it takes to wake people up again, so be it. People are lazy, stupid animals. Sadly.
via Richard Florida and the Creative Class Exchange
Voodoo Princess Clarice was a choice link I decided to click from off to the side of Technoccult here. It’s part of the Google Ads thing.
Aside from Bush playing as I peruse the website, other gems include the aniGIF lightning bolts wallpaper, the slick ASCII illustration (ACiD, eat your hearts out), and then there’s the spells… for sale:
Voodoo Princess Clarice is known for her powerful healing rituals and her love spells. These powerful spells have been handed down through the years from the most noted voodoo practitioners in voodoo history. Regardless of your situation, my powerful ancient love spells can restore love, passion, romance and commitment or remove or place a hex or get revenge. Whatever your heart desires, I am Princess Clarice.
Rev Max, you got any sort of deduction here? I get from this that professionally working voodoo priestesses listen to pop rock, are into video game fantasy art, and can cast spells as easy as I can roll a D20 to smite my ex-girlfriends.
Voodoo Princess Clarice’s spell list includes plenty of love-me spells for those of you too lame to grow a pair and start talking to cuties at the library or caf?, weight-loss spells for people who don’t feel it’s necessary to get regular exercise or eat relatively healthy, the interesting stop-a-divorce spell for those of you who are too afraid to admit when it might be over and move on into the new experiences life has to offer you, pregnancy spells (also known as needles-and-condom ends), and an assortment of favourites for the whole family.
Why wait? Call now! (310) 254-7143 “serious callers only”
I want to beat myself up now simply via 3? association. More on how occultists see themselves and are seen by others here.
I recently read on Boing Boing about a book that expounds on The Secret, un-commercially called The Secret Source: The Law of Attraction is One of Seven Hermetic Laws: Here Are the Other Six (link). Using the usual occult description (whereas I just throw in clich? occult imagery for effect… though it did come up in an image search for “Kybalion”):
The Secret Source goes above and beyond the media phenomenon known as The Secret to reveal the powerful occult doctrines that gave birth to ‘The Law of Attraction.’
The Secret Source traces the seven Hermetic Laws back to ancient Greece and Egypt and shows how they filtered down through various religions and into the mainstream consciousness of the modern world. This book provides the actual texts and fascinating stories behind the ‘Emerald Tablet,’ the Kabbalistic treatise known as ‘The Kybalion,’ and the prosperity consciousness beliefs of the New Thought movement that have given sustenance to health and wealth-oriented seekers of every generation since the late 19th century.
If you recognized the power behind ‘The Law of Attraction’ but felt ambivalent about The Secret’s materially-driven, infomercial style approach, you will appreciate this deeper understanding and examination of the Law’s true nature.
Or you can just read The Kybalion here for free on Google Books. (Wikipedia entry.) Enjoy.
The Seven Principles of Kybalion Awesomeness:-
- Principle of Mentalism
The Principle of Mentalism embodies the truth that “All is Mind.” - Principle of Correspondence
The Principle of Correspondence embodies the idea that there is always a correspondence between the laws of phenomena of the various “planes” of being and life. As above, so below; as below, so above. - Principle of Vibration
The Principle of Vibration embodies the idea that motion is manifest in everything in the Universe, that nothing rests, and everything moves, vibrates, and circles. - Principle of Polarity
The Principle of Polarity embodies the idea that everything is dual, everything has two poles, and everything has its opposite. - Principle of Rhythm
The Principle of Rhythm embodies the idea that in everything there is manifested a measured motion, a to and fro, a flow and inflow, a swing backward and forward, a pendulum-like movement. - Principle of Cause and Effect
The Principle of Cause and Effect explains that there is a cause for every effect, and an effect for every cause. It also states that there is no such thing as chance, that chance is merely a term indicating extant causes not recognized or perceived. - Principle of Gender
The Principle of Gender embodies the idea that there gender is manifested in everything. The authors state this does not relate to “sex,” but to “… beget; to procreate, to generate, to create, or to produce” in general. Gender is manifested as the Masculine and Feminine principles, and manifests itself on all planes. [More on this here.]
And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
MATTHEW 6:5-8
From the good boys over at the Economist:
What accounts for the failure of atheists to organise and wield influence? One problem is that they are hardly a cohesive group. Another issue is simply branding. ‘Atheist’ has an ugly ring in American ears and it merely defines what people are not. ‘Godless’ is worse, its derogatory attachment to ‘communist’ may never be broken. ‘Humanist’ sounds too hippyish. A few have taken to calling themselves ‘Brights’ for no good reason and to widespread mirth. And ‘secular’ isn’t quite the word either; one can be a Christian secularist.
But another failing of the irreligious movement has been its tendency, frequently, to pick the wrong fights. Keeping the Ten Commandments out of an Alabama courthouse is one thing. But attacking a Christmas nativity scene on public property does more harm than good. Such secular crusades allow Christians-after all, the overwhelming majority of the country-to feel under attack, and even to declare that they are on the defensive in a ‘War on Christmas’. When a liberal federal court in California struck the words ‘under God’ from the pledge of allegiance, religious conservatives rallied. Atheists might be tactically wise to accept the overwhelming majority’s comfort with such ‘ceremonial deism’.
In the context of all the good advancing copyright law can do for us as we move further into the twenty-first century (see “How creativity is being strangled by the law“), I almost shed a tear for Americans this afternoon because of these two bills being rushed into action:
House vote on illegal images sweeps in Wi-Fi, Web sites
The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a bill saying that anyone offering an open Wi-Fi connection to the public must report illegal images including “obscene” cartoons and drawings–or face fines of up to $300,000.
That broad definition would cover individuals, coffee shops, libraries, hotels, and even some government agencies that provide Wi-Fi. It also sweeps in social-networking sites, domain name registrars, Internet service providers, and e-mail service providers such as Hotmail and Gmail, and it may require that the complete contents of the user’s account be retained for subsequent police inspection. [cont.]
Download A Song–Lose Your Loan
Page 411 of this 747-page bill is “Section 494(A): CAMPUS-BASED DIGITAL THEFT PREVENTION” wherein the bill’s meaning takes a serious detour from its title. To prevent college students from illegally accessing copyrighted material, the section says all schools shall (when you see the word “shall” in a law, it’s a requirement, not a suggestion):
1) Have “a plan for offering alternatives to illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property”
and
2) Have “a plan to explore technology based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity.”The craziest thing about this is that noncompliant schools would lose all their federal funding, for all their students. No more Pell Grants. No more federal financial aid. No more student loans. This is not just draconian punishment for students who break the law, this punishes all students at that institution even if they did nothing!
Beyond that, both requirements actually work against the point of the bill itself–implementation would likely raise school fees. [cont.]
I won’t name names, but recently I helped out a friend occultist in California review Canadian cities to expatriate to. I sent him a bunch of info on crime, lifestyle, popular job markets, and some ethnic/religious backgrounds to the cities to help him decide which was more his flavour.
As we move into an era where identity exists more and more online, and who knows as more transhuman technologies become more mainstream over the next decade. Copyright, essentially communications in general, has become the quiet battleground in the American government. Because these Draconian laws benefit not only the corporations down there, but the right-wing zealous nuts who want the world safe for their Sears-inspired Christian regime, might I suggest you, too, look at moving abroad rather than putting up with the weird Fourth Reich that is bubbling and brewing.
For those of you not caring or fighting your government before it swelters and your personal freedoms are abandoned in favour of a “safe, secure Christian state,” please feel free to inquire with any of us Canadian occultists about which cities might be welcome to you. There’s always South America, Asia, or Europe if you’re thinking more exotic, and I have friends that are always flying down to South Africa to work.
For those of you that decide to fight on your native soil, kudos to you. To the rest of you, if you don’t feel it’s your battle, the world is your oyster. America is not the end-all, be-all of the human experience.
Just a friendly word from Fell. And if there is any interest, perhaps I should put together an Guide to Canada for American Counterculture Expats. Aforementioned Californian seemed to appreciate it and is checking out his city of choice this winter. And I know we’re not exactly 100% sovereign from the U.S.’s influence, but things are nowhere near the psycho state that is growing down there. =]
EDIT — A bit of a perception/context update for the SAFE Act, via the good boys at Ars Technica:
Despite hyperbole to the contrary, the SAFE Act that passed the House yesterday won’t force local coffee shops, libraries, and home users to monitor their network connections for child porn.
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