AdamSmith

Verizon's new logo...

Odd. I'm using FireFox/Win7, if that matters. In any event, I agree Yahoo is behind the decline and fall of everything.

Verbal force projection. DoD web site and documents are loaded with these threateningly long sentences that carpet-bomb the reader with words. Like, from this GiG doc: The GIG will be a net-centric system operating in a global context to provide processing, storage, management, and transport of information to support all Department of Defense (DoD), national security, and related Intelligence Community missions and functions - strategic, operational, tactical, and business - in war, in crisis, and in peace. GIG capabilities will be available from all operating locations: bases, posts, camps, stations, facilities, mobile platforms, and deployed sites. The GIG will interface with allied, coalition, and non-GIG systems. The overarching objective of the GIG vision is to provide the National Command Authority (NCA), warfighters, DoD personnel, Intelligence Community, business, policy-makers, and non-DoD users with information superiority, decision superiority, and full-spectrum dominance. And so on and on and on.

Still works for me; I checked just now. The Archive view, if the month counter is set to June (latest), shows every picture, not just a sample. And from there I can scroll down the Archive page as far back in time as I wish, just as always before. If I set the month counter to May, the Archive view shows every pic for May and previous. Etc. Not sure what you're seeing?

We often hear the famous snippet of Jefferson's great pronouncement on why a free press is critical to the functioning of a democracy. Finally occurred to me to look it up in context. Illuminating; sharply relevant today: Document 8 Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington 16 Jan. 1787Papers 11:48--49 The tumults in America I expected would have produced in Europe an unfavorable opinion of our political state. But it has not. On the contrary, the small effect of those tumults seems to have given more confidence in the firmness of our governments. The interposition of the people themselves on the side of government has had a great effect on the opinion here. I am persuaded myself that the good sense of the people will always be found to be the best army. They may be led astray for a moment, but will soon correct themselves. The people are the only censors of their governors: and even their errors will tend to keep these to the true principles of their institution. To punish these errors too severely would be to suppress the only safeguard of the public liberty. The way to prevent these irregular interpositions of the people is to give them full information of their affairs thro' the channel of the public papers, and to contrive that those papers should penetrate the whole mass of the people. The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them. I am convinced that those societies (as the Indians) which live without government enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under European governments. Among the former, public opinion is in the place of law, and restrains morals as powerfully as laws ever did any where. Among the latter, under pretence of governing they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves and sheep. I do not exaggerate. This is a true picture of Europe. Cherish therefore the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress, and Assemblies, judges and governors shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions; and experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor. http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_speechs8.html

Interesting perspective. Cloud computing is a trap, warns GNU founder Richard StallmanWeb-based programs like Google's Gmail will force people to buy into locked, proprietary systems that will cost more and more over time, according to the free software campaigner Bobbie Johnson, technology correspondent guardian.co.uk, Monday 29 September 2008 09.11 EDT Richard Stallman on cloud computing: "It's stupidity. It's worse than stupidity: it's a marketing hype campaign." Photograph: www.stallman.org The concept of using web-based programs like Google's Gmail is "worse than stupidity", according to a leading advocate of free software. Cloud computing – where IT power is delivered over the internet as you need it, rather than drawn from a desktop computer – has gained currency in recent years. Large internet and technology companies including Google, Microsoft and Amazon are pushing forward their plans to deliver information and software over the net. But Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation and creator of the computer operating system GNU, said that cloud computing was simply a trap aimed at forcing more people to buy into locked, proprietary systems that would cost them more and more over time. "It's stupidity. It's worse than stupidity: it's a marketing hype campaign," he told The Guardian. "Somebody is saying this is inevitable – and whenever you hear somebody saying that, it's very likely to be a set of businesses campaigning to make it true." The 55-year-old New Yorker said that computer users should be keen to keep their information in their own hands, rather than hand it over to a third party. His comments echo those made last week by Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle, who criticised the rash of cloud computing announcements as "fashion-driven" and "complete gibberish". "The interesting thing about cloud computing is that we've redefined cloud computing to include everything that we already do," he said. "The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women's fashion. Maybe I'm an idiot, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about. What is it? It's complete gibberish. It's insane. When is this idiocy going to stop?" The growing number of people storing information on internet-accessible servers rather than on their own machines, has become a core part of the rise of Web 2.0 applications. Millions of people now upload personal data such as emails, photographs and, increasingly, their work, to sites owned by companies such as Google. Computer manufacturer Dell recently even tried to trademark the term "cloud computing", although its application was refused. But there has been growing concern that mainstream adoption of cloud computing could present a mixture of privacy and ownership issues, with users potentially being locked out of their own files. Stallman, who is a staunch privacy advocate, advised users to stay local and stick with their own computers. "One reason you should not use web applications to do your computing is that you lose control," he said. "It's just as bad as using a proprietary program. Do your own computing on your own computer with your copy of a freedom-respecting program. If you use a proprietary program or somebody else's web server, you're defenceless. You're putty in the hands of whoever developed that software." http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/sep/29/cloud.computing.richard.stallman

President Obama's let's-have-a-debate defense Obama could have chosen at any time to disclose the data-sifting program. | AP Photo By JOSH GERSTEIN | 6/7/13 5:04 AM EDT Updated: 6/7/13 1:27 PM EDT politico.com The Obama administration has a familiar refrain on the surveillance of Americans’ telephone records: the president and his team are eager to have the debate. Eager, that is, only after others have brought the tactics to light and the administration has spent years employing them. On Guantanamo and drone strikes, as well as his administration’s aggressive use of leak investigations into the telephone records and e-mails of journalists, President Barack Obama and his aides often seem to cast him as a detached analyst or law professor watching policies carried out, rather than the one actually directing or responsible for them. When it comes to surveillance, Obama has as president shown no sign of really wanting to have a robust debate. For years, Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Mark Udall (D-Colo.) and former Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) have been pleading with the administration to disclose more information about call-tracking tactics that they suggested would shock many Americans. The administration largely rebuffed those calls. Only after the leak Wednesday of a four-page “top secret” court order indicating that millions of Americans’ phone calls were tracked on a daily basis did officials begin to confirm the program’s details. But Obama could have chosen at any time to disclose the data-sifting program, or even its rough outlines. That fact leaves critics unimpressed with his latest round of let’s-talk-it-over. “Every time he gets into trouble, he wants to have a debate, he wants to have a discussion….I think it’s his way — a distortion field created by his own moral rectitude,” said Michael Meyers of the New York Civil Rights Coalition. “It’s the same thing with the reporters [and leaks], he wants to have a guy who violated their civil liberties to have a discussion with the media.” “This is [Obama’s] characteristic mode of discourse,” said Steven Aftergood, a classified information policy analyst with the Federation of American Scientists. “The public should have been notified and consulted and involved and it was not. That should have taken place years ago.” In explaining the administration’s reticence to offer details on surveillance, drones and similar issues, officials have often argued that disclosing details about such programs or in some cases even their existence, would endanger Americans by making the programs easier for terrorists to thwart. Even as he declassified some information about the phone call-tracking program Thursday night, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper warned that revelations about the program could have grave consequences. ”The unauthorized disclosure of a top secret U.S. court document threatens potentially long-lasting and irreversible harm to our ability to identify and respond to the many threats facing our nation,” Clapper said. “Discussing programs like this publicly will have an impact on the behavior of our adversaries and make it more difficult for us to understand their intentions.” White House spokesman Josh Earnest struck a somewhat different tone earlier in the day, declaring that Obama and his aides were pleased to join in a vigorous public debate on the issue. “The president welcomes a discussion of the tradeoffs between security and civil liberties,” he told reporters. “There are people who have a genuine interest in protecting the United States and protecting constitutional liberties, constitutional rights and civil liberties, that may disagree about how to strike this balance. We welcome that debate.” The response perplexed analysts with varying perspectives on the government’s surveillance efforts. “If [Obama] welcomed the discussion, he would have disclosed the program,” Aftergood said. “There is going to be a discussion not because the president’s welcomed it, but because the information was leaked … The discussion is only taking place because his own policies were violated.” ... Cont. at http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/barack-obama-debate-defense-nsa-surveillance-92389.html?hp=r20

My ex's mother is like that. "Oh, that's still good!" For things that look like they may date from the Korean war.

Indeed. Sounds like taken directly from DoD or NSA literature, such as: http://www.nsa.gov/ia/programs/global_information_grid/index.shtml

Lawmakers rebut Obama's data defense By REID J. EPSTEIN | 6/7/13 9:40 PM EDT politico.com President Barack Obama’s chief defense of his administration’s wide-ranging data-gathering programs Friday: Congress authorized them, with “every member” well aware of the details. Not so, say many members of Congress — Democrats and Republicans alike. Typically, members of Congress “don’t receive this kind of briefing,” Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told POLITICO Friday. They wouldn’t have known about the programs unless they were on an intelligence committee, attended special sessions last held in 2011 or specifically asked to be briefed – something they would only know to do if they were clued in by an colleague who was already aware. Durbin said he learned about the two programs himself only after requesting a briefing under “classified circumstances” after being urged to do so by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). Congressional leadership and intelligence committees had access to information about the programs, he said — but the “average member” of Congress likely wouldn’t have been aware of the breadth of the telephone and Internet surveillance. There’s no public record of who has attended any of these sessions — and even the Obama administration couldn’t confirm the president’s claim that “every member of Congress” had been briefed. The White House declined to comment for this story. And Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) told POLITICO that the classified intelligence briefing sessions he’s attended haven’t disclosed details on the two data-gathering programs as were unveiled this week. Schock, in Congress since 2009, said he had “no idea” about the phone data gathering, or any briefings for House members to discuss it, until news reports this week. Like other members who said they learned of the data-gathering efforts when they were revealed in the Guardian and the Washington Post, Schock said the administration classified briefings he’s attended have revealed very little information. “I can assure you the phone number tracking of non-criminal, non-terrorist suspects was not discussed,” he said. “Most members have stopped going to their classified briefings because they rarely tell us anything we don’t already know in the news. It really has become a charade.” President Obama’s explanation allows him to sound a nothing-to-see-here note that paints the programs as both prosaic and innocuous. After all, if all 535 members of Congress knew about them, how bad could they really be? “These are the folks you all vote for as your representatives in Congress, and they’re being fully briefed on these programs,” said Obama. “And if, in fact … there were abuses taking place, presumably those members of Congress could raise those issues very aggressively. They’re empowered to do so.” But as Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) complained to Attorney General Eric Holder during a Thursday hearing, the idea that Congress has been “fully briefed” on these programs is coming as news to many of the lawmakers themselves. “This ‘fully briefed’ is something that drives us up the wall, because often ‘fully briefed’ means a group of eight leadership; it does not necessarily mean relevant committees,” Mikulski said. In theory, briefings on the electronic surveillance programs were available — and offered — to every member of Congress. In practice, they were regularly given to those on the House and Senate Intelligence committees — and haven’t been offered all members of Congress for the past two years, except by request. Justice and intelligence officials conducted a dozen briefings for congressional committees and leadership between May 2009 and October 2011, and FBI Director Robert Mueller briefed the House GOP conference and House Democratic caucus in May 2011 ahead of the last the Patriot Act reauthorization. The administration also asked that classified white papers be made available to all members of the House and Senate in 2011, when the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was last re-authorized. So senators not on the intelligence committee would only have learned of the program had they attended one of those classified briefings in 2010 or 2011. Then, the committee invited all 100 senators to read a classified report on “roving authority for electronic surveillance” in a secure location in the Hart Senate Office Building. Asked Thursday if she knew how many senators had taken the time to read the report, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) responded: “I do not, certainly the Intelligence Committee should have.” Congress last reauthorized the FISA provision of the Patriot Act in in May 2011, with the Senate voting 72-23 in favor, and the House approving the measure by a 250-153 count. It is not known how many members reviewed the intelligence papers prior to those votes. And it’s not clear how many members of Congress have pursued classified briefings on their own. But it’s not hard to find members of Congress this week who say the latest reports are the first they’ve heard of these programs. There are now nine senators and 61 congressmen who were not in office during the 2010 and 2011 briefing sessions — new members of Congress like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who have never been personally informed of either program unless they asked about it. “Americans trusted President Obama when he came to office promising the most transparent administration in history,” Cruz said Friday. “But that trust has been broken and the only way to earn it back is to tell the truth.” Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.) wrote “not quite” on Twitter in response to a reporter’s tweet about Obama’s remark that “every member” was aware of the data-gathering programs. Long wasn’t made available to explain his tweet Friday. And Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) told MSNBC Friday that he received a briefing only because he “sought it out,” not because the Obama administration had offered it to him. “I had to get special permission to find out about the program,” Merkley said. “It raised concerns for me. … When I saw what was being done, I felt it was so out of sync with the plain language of the law and that it merited full public examination, and that’s why I called for the declassification.” - Burgess Everett and Jake Sherman contributed to this report. Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/congress-nsa-prism-intelligence-briefing-92438.html#ixzz2VdUN0qAX

@jdickerson6/7/13 11:28 AM EDT President's meeting with Chinese was always going to be about cyber snooping, we just didn't know it was about exchanging best practices

hitoall:

Not funny.

I missed the museum, alas. I like such places. The Nixon Library & Birthplace for instance was fascinating, somewhat morbidly so.

Several I follow still seem to be working as before. E.g., http://leoer2.tumblr.com/archive

Pizza man! Reminds of somewhat similar discovery right after college that quiche is the perfect meal because you can throw in everything that's about to go bad in the back of the fridge.

Liberace: the 10 things you need to knowOff to see Behind the Candelabra this weekend? Get up to speed with our Liberace primer Liberace was always going to be in showbizHe became a pianist, vocalist, actor and WWF announcer (more on that later), but Liberace was born Władziu Valentino Liberace (or just "Lee" to his friends), which is a slightly more showy name than, say, Reginald Dwight. Mind you, his older brother was called George, signalling that his parents knew they had to step it up name-wise if they wanted a showbiz breakthrough. All the signs of his genius were there from an early ageLiberace was born with a caul, which, as you well know, is a piece of birth membrane that remains on the head and was thought to be an omen that the child was destined for amazingness. Other famous "caul-ists" include Lord Byron, Napoleon and, erm, James Iha, who used to be in the Smashing Pumpkins. He wasn't exactly a classical music puristA prodigious talent, Liberace learned to play the piano at the age of four and was able to memorise difficult classical pieces by the time he was seven. By the time he started touring America in the early 1940s, his flair for improvisation and a good pull quote emerged after he claimed he'd only play "classical music with the boring parts left out". Like most musical megastars, Liberace struggled to make the move into filmAt the height of his fame, Liberace was keen to move into film, starring in his first movie, Sincerely Yours, in 1955 for Warner Brothers. Rumours are that Doris Day was initially asked to be his leading lady, but the idea was scrapped because the studio felt Liberace's name alone would be enough to sell it. In the end the film performed so badly that Warner bought out the remainder of his contract. He found a more receptive home on TVIgnoring a career on the radio because no one could see him on the wireless, Liberace went straight to TV, landing his own show, prosaically called The Liberace Show, in 1952 (the show was broadcast in the UK and was apparently quite a big influence on a young Elton John). Perhaps his oddest TV appearance came in 1966 when he played a dual role as concert pianist Chandell alongside his evil twin, Harry, in the "slightly camp" TV version of Batman. The two episodes he starred in – The Devil's Fingers and Dead Ringer – were the highest-rated episodes in the show's history. Liberace was adamant he wasn't gay and often sued people who claimed he wasWith a penchant for ludicrous fur coats, diamanté-strewn two pieces and, at one point, a fetching purple rinse, Liberace hid his supposed heterosexuality well. In 1954 he announced his engagement to actress Joanne Rio, but the nuptials were swiftly curtailed by her father, who was put off by rumours about Liberace's sexuality. In 1959 the Daily Mirror referred to Liberace as "a deadly, winking, sniggering, snuggling, chromium-plated, scent-impregnated, luminous, quivering, giggling, fruit-flavoured, mincing, ice-covered heap of mother love". He promptly sued them, winning £8,000 in damages, and telling reporters he "cried all the way to the bank". He wasn't comfortable with being baldAccording to a TV documentary released in 2001, Liberace was so traumatised by his hair loss that he would sleep wearing one of his many hairpieces, and apparently once almost refused to undergo a planned facelift after the doctor asked him to remove his toupee. He was apparently quite the fan of the World Wrestling FederationIn 1985 Liberace appeared as the guest timekeeper at the first ever WrestleMania, joining other guests Muhammad Ali and dance company the Rockettes. Wrestlers scoring wins on the night included the Junkyard Dog, André the Giant and Hulk Hogan. He had his own museumIn 1978 Liberace opened his own museum, the Liberace Museum, which housed many of his pianos, cars, jewellery and costumes. At its peak, the museum brought in an average of 400,000 patrons a year. One specific exhibit was devoted to fan tributes and included a Steinway piano made out of 10,000 toothpicks. The museum closed in 2010. Liberace's last meal was breakfast cerealLiberace died on 4 February 1987 from an Aids-related illness. According to his cook, his last meal consisted of Cream of Wheat hot cereal (it's sort of like porridge), made with half-and-half milk and seasoned with brown sugar. http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2013/jun/07/liberace-10-things-to-know?guni=Network%20front:network-front%20main-4%20Pixies:Pixies:Position15

P.S.A naive freshman, I learned from a next-door dorm mate who was taking a bar tending class to fill the bong with water laced with Amaretto. Very cool smoke. So you see.

We need to have a discussion about this realism. In a position that we have not heretofore tabled.