Drawing Attention

The blog of a freind of mine. Greg is the politcal cartoonist for The Casper Star Tribune. Funny - sometimes painfully - stuff.


http://drawing-attention.blogspot.com/

No fly BS list...

Executive version:

• If you are a dead terrorist - you can't fly.
• If your name is even similar to a terrorist (living or dead) you can't fly - and there is no way to prove you aren't the dead terrorist to the guys peeling off your fingernails.
• If you are currently under investigation because you ARE a terrorist - well that information is too sensitive to be on the list so you CAN fly. For example the guys that caused the recent war on moisture. Their names are not on the list.
  
• If you are a terrorist with an IQ high enough to be able to dress yourself, and use the fake ID supplied by your teenage son - you CAN fly.
  

Long - full 60 minutes investigation version:
http://rawstory.com/showoutarticle.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cbsnews.com%2Fstories%2F2006%2F10%2F05%2F60minutes%2Fmain2066624.shtml

OMG! Traitors in the Senate

Just when you think the "patriot" act was the most un-American thing you've ever seen - along come the traitors Arlen Specter (R) and Dianne Feinstein (D). Jeesuss!

Introducing the National Security Surveillance Act. and Wired's coverage of it.

Isn't there some requirement that our so called representation have actually read the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights?

What part of:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Is unclear?

The Democrats Impeachment Plans?

Exactly! Dead solid on the mark...

The Democrats Impeachment Plans?

Wafa Sultan

From the NY Times - LOS ANGELES, March 10 — Three weeks ago, Dr. Wafa Sultan was a largely unknown Syrian-American psychiatrist living outside Los Angeles, nursing a deep anger and despair about her fellow Muslims.

Today, thanks to an unusually blunt and provocative interview on Al Jazeera television on Feb. 21, she is an international sensation, hailed as a fresh voice of reason by some, and by others as a heretic and infidel who deserves to die.

The Interview:




http://switch3.castup.net/cunet/gm.asp?ai=214&ar=1050wmv&ak=null

Lean more about this brave woman. Google "Wafa Sultan"

The Fight Club Effect

What's wrong with the US? Ask this question of ten people and get ten answers... I have a few ideas of my own but I think it can be summed up with a Sunday afternoon's TV viewing.

I noticed that (an un-named basic cable channel) was running Fight Club yesterday afternoon. I personally love the movie and adore the book so I had it on the tube while doing other things... I thought it odd that a basic cable channel would run this R rated movie at all - much less on Sunday afternoon.

If you haven't seen it or read the book - it's a movie that deals with a lot of social ills and includes, not only as the title would suggest - graphic violence but also fairly graphic sexuality, crime, generally despicable acts, and as one would guess - colorful language. Overall it's a terrifically twisted commentary on modern life.

After all of this I now understand that in the USA Sunday afternoon cable is an ok venue for graphic violence and despicable acts (like vandalism and torture), but apparently not for reasonably normal heterosexual sex, brief nudity, and certainly not for any of the words on George Carlin's famous list.

F(bleep)k me...

Boing Boing Banned...

Editors Note: I originally wrote this on 2-27 and never pulled the trigger on the "publish" button. Still a viable story and ongoing issue with BoingBoing though.

Over at one of my most favorite blogs BoingBoing.net they have discovered that their site has recently been included in Secure Computing's Smartfilter nudity category. Since this product is widely used by many large sites including the DOD, many government agencies, universities and even whole countries, their site is no longer available to many readers without a lot of digital wrangling.

While this is really unfortunate as BB is a terrific blog - I think the editors are taking it quite hard. They have started a campaign against Secure computing (and other censorware vendors). While they have a valid argument against censorship in general and the absolute black and white nature of these tools - I think that their considerable influence would be better used in slightly different angle. Call out the system administrators of these sites and get them to relax their policies.

I've included below by correspondence with Cory Doctorow and Xeni Jardin - only to show my position rather than re-write it all here. It's a direct cut and paste from my last email so it's in reverse chronological order - newest stuff at the top. First message at the bottom. Sorry for some of the formatting - shit happens when text passes through two or three email clients.

------------------------

At02/27/2006 04:37 PM Shawn wrote:
The point is that in some cases - yes - even Google too should be
filtered and the tool should be available to do that.

I agree that this seems draconian but my position of protecting a
publicly accountable organization from stupid employee antics and even
more stupid lawsuits means I have a different perspective on this.
Your statistics on false positives do make a good point but from the
other end of the looking glass things are different. Example - I have a
truly amazing spam filter - almost 70% of our incoming mail is junk and
is dumped - way less than 1% false positives too. However if even one
gets through - especially an offensive message - that is a 100% failure
to the end user and they are convinced that the filter is a POS. Not to
mention the blow back if a paying member of the public was to see an ad
for a porn site on one of our PC's... We would be front page news in
seconds.

A good analogy would be writing HR policy for a large company.
Policies are written to the lowest common denominator and usually suck.
Some spelling out ridiculous detail. All because some idiot really did
do the thing the policy is written against. Even though you and I would
agree that no rational adult would pull some of the stuff I've seen -
without the policy in force the organization has no legal recourse when
dealing with said moron... Go sit through a few cases in any municipal
court and you will begin to get the idea of stupidity on the hoof out there.

I'm with ya guys - I hate censorship in any form and will stand with the
last man fighting when my government does it - but in this case I really
do think its the sysadmin's you should be calling in on the carpet and
not the software companies.

Thanks for listening - and if I didn't say it before, thanks for
BoingBoing. It rocks. I'll shut up now...

Cory Doctorow wrote:


>> Shawn, you'r emissing the point. They have a 99.5% false positive
>> rate. That's not a well-made tool. That's indiscriminate censorship.
>> By that logic, Google should be filtered because you can get Google
>> Images (even with Safe mode on) to return nudity 0.5 percent of the
>> time if you use the right keywords.
>>
>> Cory
>>
>> On Feb 27, 2006, at 10:52 PM, Xeni Jardin wrote:
>>
>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: Shawn Mammon [mailto:smammon@gmail.com]
>>>> Sent: Monday, February 27, 2006 2:52 PM
>>>> To: xeni@xeni.net
>>>> Subject: Censor campaign misses the mark
>>>>
>>>> Xeni,
>>>>
>>>> Been reading BB for a long time and 99.999% of the time I'm right
>>>> there with
>>>> ya. This time though I think your good intentions are a bit
>>>> misdirected. I
>>>> manage a fairly large IT shop for a very public organization so I
>>>> see this
>>>> through the eyes of "the man" in this case.
>>>> IMHO placing the blame on censor ware companies is pretty much the same
>>>> thing as blaming gun manufacturers for murder. It's not the tool -
>>>> it's the tool that uses it...
>>>>
>>>> I'm sorry but if Secure Computing didn't include you in the nudity
>>>> filter
>>>> they would be crucified for not being thorough, and their customers
>>>> would
>>>> drop them like a hot rock. Even if it's a tiny portion of your
>>>> posts the
>>>> fact is still - that it's there. Secure is doing it's job, sadly
>>>> the market
>>>> exists (and I'm sorry, but it's needed. I'd be happy to elaborate if
>>>> you
>>>> like) It's up to the individual sysadmin to decide if a site should be
>>>> removed from the filter or treated
>>>> differently. It's Secure's job to provide the tool. That's all.
>>>> Attacking an otherwise excellent company (yes I use their firewall
>>>> products
>>>> and they have a spotless record with us) is fruitless and runs
>>>> counter to
>>>> the normally well conceived and rational approach you and your co-
>>>> editors
>>>> usually employ.
>>>>
>>>> -- Shawn