News of Interest for 9/1/06
How Phil K Dick took over the world
"You don't expect eerily accurate prophecy from science fiction. It's especially weird when the work in question comes from the pen of Philip K Dick, a writer with no particular interest in science or the future. But somehow his 1965 novel The Zap Gun anticipates the modern world in a way that nobody else did."
-Via nthposition.com
Trooper shootings take luster off legend of escaped convict
"'For months, waitress Dawn McCarthy felt a degree of sympathy for Ralph "Bucky" Phillips, a fugitive who has managed to evade police in the backwoods of western New York since using a can opener to break out of jail in April.
"In the beginning, it was 'Ha, ha.' Now it's scary, and I just wish it was over," McCarthy said Friday in this village near where two state troopers were critically wounded Thursday in what authorities suspect was an ambush by Phillips. '"
-Via NewsDay.com
Disney's Finger Scan Upgrade Raises Privacy Concerns
"The Central Florida ACLU said they know Disney is not doing anything illegal but said people should know what they're submitting to before they enter the park.
"If Uncle Sam decides to hit Walt Disney with a subpoena because they want those records, what is Walt Disney going to do?" Crossley said. "They're going to provide the records right?"'
-Via Local6.com
Open season on Haiti's poor, study finds
"A study in the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet suggests that, despite the presence of a Canadian-led United Nations police force and UN peacekeepers, 8,000 people have been killed and 35,000 women and girls raped in Port-au-Prince alone since the ouster of then-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February 2004."
-Via The Gazette (Canada)
Greenhouse Emissions Up for Rich
"And the overall figures are almost certainly underestimates because Russia has not reported emissions since 1999. Since then the U.N. Climate Secretariat has simply rolled over the 1999 data, when Russia's emissions were 39 percent below 1990 levels."
-Via Wired.com
Market Forces vs. Traffic Jams
"Under the scheme, cars would be monitored with radio-frequency identification (RFID) or global positioning system (GPS) technologies that would track where and when they are driven. Drivers would pay mileage-based and location-based tolls on a sliding scale: up to 20 cents per mile for driving through bottleneck stretches at the busiest times."
-Via MIT Technology Review
Chinese Railway Switching to RFID Transit Cards
"Moving to RFID tickets will enable the company to eliminate counterfeit tickets, Lindstrom explains, because the RFID inlays in the tickets will be factory-encoded with an encrypted number that train personnel will read using authorized handheld interrogators. Once the railway completely transitions to the RFID-based tickets, he says, it may replace the manual ticket-checking process with RFID readers embedded into turnstiles, which patrons would need to pass through before boarding. "
-Via RFID Journal
Cell phones won't keep your secrets
"A popular practice among sellers, resetting the phone, often means sensitive information appears to have been erased. But it can be resurrected using specialized yet inexpensive software found on the Internet."
-Via CNN.com
Torture and Poverty Are Part of Life in Equatorial Guinea
"It has the makings of a modern-day fairy tale, the story of a country transformed from a pariah state into an oil paradise. But the reality is that Equatorial Guinea, almost unnoticed by the rest of the world, is experiencing a modern-day tragedy, a story of the dark niches of global politics in times of oil and terror."
-Via Der Speigel
How Israel Casts Its Dark Shadow Over Horn of Africa
"The Eritrean Foreign Ministry refuted the news item denying the existence of any Israeli base on their Islands. However, an intensive study carried out by the Center for Political and Strategic Studies and published by Al-Ahram in June 2006 titled “Isaias Afewerki’s Regime and Developing Relations with Israel” confirmed that the issue was much bigger than the Israeli military bases on Eritrean soil. It revealed a strategic relationship between the two governments that began with Eritrea’s President Isaias Afewerki traveling to Israel for medical treatment in 1993."
-Via Arabnews.com
"Fascism" Frame Set Up by Right-Wing Press
"The aggressive new campaign by the administration of President George W. Bush to depict U.S. foes in the Middle East as "fascists" and its domestic critics as "appeasers" owes a great deal to steadily intensifying efforts by the right-wing press over the past several months to draw the same comparison. "
-Via Inter Press News Service
"You don't expect eerily accurate prophecy from science fiction. It's especially weird when the work in question comes from the pen of Philip K Dick, a writer with no particular interest in science or the future. But somehow his 1965 novel The Zap Gun anticipates the modern world in a way that nobody else did."
-Via nthposition.com
Trooper shootings take luster off legend of escaped convict
"'For months, waitress Dawn McCarthy felt a degree of sympathy for Ralph "Bucky" Phillips, a fugitive who has managed to evade police in the backwoods of western New York since using a can opener to break out of jail in April.
"In the beginning, it was 'Ha, ha.' Now it's scary, and I just wish it was over," McCarthy said Friday in this village near where two state troopers were critically wounded Thursday in what authorities suspect was an ambush by Phillips. '"
-Via NewsDay.com
Disney's Finger Scan Upgrade Raises Privacy Concerns
"The Central Florida ACLU said they know Disney is not doing anything illegal but said people should know what they're submitting to before they enter the park.
"If Uncle Sam decides to hit Walt Disney with a subpoena because they want those records, what is Walt Disney going to do?" Crossley said. "They're going to provide the records right?"'
-Via Local6.com
Open season on Haiti's poor, study finds
"A study in the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet suggests that, despite the presence of a Canadian-led United Nations police force and UN peacekeepers, 8,000 people have been killed and 35,000 women and girls raped in Port-au-Prince alone since the ouster of then-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February 2004."
-Via The Gazette (Canada)
Greenhouse Emissions Up for Rich
"And the overall figures are almost certainly underestimates because Russia has not reported emissions since 1999. Since then the U.N. Climate Secretariat has simply rolled over the 1999 data, when Russia's emissions were 39 percent below 1990 levels."
-Via Wired.com
Market Forces vs. Traffic Jams
"Under the scheme, cars would be monitored with radio-frequency identification (RFID) or global positioning system (GPS) technologies that would track where and when they are driven. Drivers would pay mileage-based and location-based tolls on a sliding scale: up to 20 cents per mile for driving through bottleneck stretches at the busiest times."
-Via MIT Technology Review
Chinese Railway Switching to RFID Transit Cards
"Moving to RFID tickets will enable the company to eliminate counterfeit tickets, Lindstrom explains, because the RFID inlays in the tickets will be factory-encoded with an encrypted number that train personnel will read using authorized handheld interrogators. Once the railway completely transitions to the RFID-based tickets, he says, it may replace the manual ticket-checking process with RFID readers embedded into turnstiles, which patrons would need to pass through before boarding. "
-Via RFID Journal
Cell phones won't keep your secrets
"A popular practice among sellers, resetting the phone, often means sensitive information appears to have been erased. But it can be resurrected using specialized yet inexpensive software found on the Internet."
-Via CNN.com
Torture and Poverty Are Part of Life in Equatorial Guinea
"It has the makings of a modern-day fairy tale, the story of a country transformed from a pariah state into an oil paradise. But the reality is that Equatorial Guinea, almost unnoticed by the rest of the world, is experiencing a modern-day tragedy, a story of the dark niches of global politics in times of oil and terror."
-Via Der Speigel
How Israel Casts Its Dark Shadow Over Horn of Africa
"The Eritrean Foreign Ministry refuted the news item denying the existence of any Israeli base on their Islands. However, an intensive study carried out by the Center for Political and Strategic Studies and published by Al-Ahram in June 2006 titled “Isaias Afewerki’s Regime and Developing Relations with Israel” confirmed that the issue was much bigger than the Israeli military bases on Eritrean soil. It revealed a strategic relationship between the two governments that began with Eritrea’s President Isaias Afewerki traveling to Israel for medical treatment in 1993."
-Via Arabnews.com
"Fascism" Frame Set Up by Right-Wing Press
"The aggressive new campaign by the administration of President George W. Bush to depict U.S. foes in the Middle East as "fascists" and its domestic critics as "appeasers" owes a great deal to steadily intensifying efforts by the right-wing press over the past several months to draw the same comparison. "
-Via Inter Press News Service
posted by Phoenix Insurgent at 9:38 PM
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