The Invisible Library

BBC, via Making Light:

The inventor of an “invisibility” cloak has said that his next project will be to develop the technology to allow people to see through walls.

Susumu Tachi, who showed off the cloak at an exhibition in San Francisco earlier this month, said he was hopeful of providing a way to provide a view of the outside in windowless rooms.

“This technology can be used in all kinds of ways, but I wanted to create a vision of invisibility,” he told BBC World Service’s Outlook programme.

How cool is that? I can’t wait to sneak around Hogwarts in one.

I spent all day at the CIA. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you what I saw there.

Tom Tomorrow, that lucky dog, went to the premier of Fahrenheit 9/11. His review is right where you’d expect it, over at This Modern World.

I’m very much looking forward to seeing this movie, even more than Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.

A new series of posts about human rights archives

After a week of patriotic frenzies for former President Ronald Reagan, I thought I would announce an upcoming series on archives with an interest in human rights. Our nation is only as great as the leaders, citizens, and friends who call the U.S. home, or an ally–and we are an amazing group. Yet, we as a nation are not without room for improvement. We lag behind Europe on some issues, the death penalty especially, equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people, true spiritual liberty (whatever that is), and other issues certainly, like holding heads of state in custody for undetermined lengths of time.

While in some people’s minds the task of telling these stories might be better left to journalists, poets, historians, and novelists–maybe even politicians and governments. But these other professions need the assistance of professional archivists to get the story as “right” as possible. Archivists need to do the work of documenting the cultural life of these united states so the task of living up to our lofty goals is attainable, at least in good faith. Archivists can also certainly tell the stories themselves, but as archivists our job is to assist others by providing ready access to materials of enduring and continuing value.

This blog series will feature the National Security Archive, the Human Rights Watch Archive, academic institutions such as the Oviatt Library at California State University, Northridge, which has received the collected papers of the Chicano comedic theater troupe Culture Clash (some of which will be included in the library’s Latino Cultural Heritage Digital Archives, according to printed news sources from the Reed Elsevier company),as well as the U.S. National Archives and the archives of other countries.

For now though, today is set aside as a day to celebrate the birthday of the stars and stripes. Happy flag day one and all!

Click for a history of the U.S. Flag.

The Guardian:

Saddam Hussein must either be released from custody by June 30 or charged if the US and the new Iraqi government are to conform to international law, the International Committee of the Red Cross said last night.

Surely there must be some crime to charge Hussein with but why hasn’t the US Government done so?

According to the New York Times, last year White House lawyers concluded that President Bush could legally order interrogators to torture and even kill people in the interest of national security � so if that’s legal, what the hell are we charging Saddam Hussein with? �Jay Leno

There has been some speculation that the reason Hussein hasn’t been charged is that if he goes to trial, he will remind everyone that it was the recently deceased saint of the Neocons, Ronald Reagan and his then-flunkies, Rumsfeld and Chenney who sold him the chemical weapons that he used against the Kurds in the 1980’s (these same chemical weapons were flaunted a year ago as just te tip of the evil iceberg in regards to Saddam’s WMDs, if you remember). This is a speculation, of course. But it adds to the growing controversy over the rights of Combatants/POWs and the increasingly flimsy excuses given for holding them. It would be a travesty if Hussein were released on a technicality on July 1st, just because everyone in the DOJ was too busy writing torture memos and just plum forgot to put together a case against him.

Of course, another angle on this is that the US hasn’t charged Hussein with anything because he hasn’t broken any US laws. Despite all Bush’s attempts to link the two in the mind sof the American People, Hussein had nothing to do with the WTC attacks or any other terrorist acts against the US. So he may not be subject to American law and since Bush has made it plain that he thinks international law is OK for the French but need not apply to the US, there may be nothing we can do with Hussein except:

1. Let him go
2. Turn him over to a third party who could then arrest him under international law
3. Turn him over to the Iraqi Government (which is full of Baathists who might either let him go or put him back in power)

Scenario 1 is simply unexceptable. too many people have died trying to put that man behind bars to simply let him walk away on July 1st. Scenario 2 would rob Bush of his one paper thin sliver of glory, and the last remaining pretext for invading Iraq. Scenario 3 would be even worse than scenario 1. So unless the US finds a convenient legal loophole by the end of the month and can charge Hussein with something, anything, maybe even failure to pay parking tickets, George Bush might just loose his only chance at Reelection American Justice.

Lucy likes to kneed the blanket a bit before curling up and taking a nap.

I just recieved an e-mail from a friend in Iraq who is in the Army. This part is the kicker:

…Let me now explain the politics going on around here. 30 June is a huge day. that is when we give Iraq to the new prime minister and president. [edit] But our job is not over. We have agreed to leave Iraq once they can “stand on their own two feet” And our next target is Iran. In retaliation Iran has decided to bomb Iraq preventing them to “stand on their own two feet.” Good strategy. So we can’t take over their country like we are taking over Iraq. The main trouble maker has announced that he asked for thousands of suicide crusaders from all around to hit three targets. [emphasis added]

My friend did not mention the three targets by name, but implied one was where they were located. And as for Iran being our next target, I hate to say I told you so. But all you fucking hawks and jeebofascists: I fucking told you so!!!

For those who are voting for Bush, this is what you’re voting for: unending war in the Middle East. Bush wants a holy war, Christians versus Muslims, to the death. And why Iran? Same reason as Iraq: they were the only two moderately secular governments in the region. Take them out, and the real Muslimists will take it personally, as an attack on their culture. And with no secular governments to get in the middle of their rumble, Bush and the Ayatollahs can have their Last Crusade.

And if you vote for Bush, you vote for Holy War. The blood of your children will be on your hands and there’s no cleaning it off.

Of course, there’s signals from Kerry that he’ll continue this ridiculous war in the same vein as Bush, so who knows if voting for him will be all that much better.

The war machine is on auto pilot.

See you in Canada.

Manchester Online:

MANCHESTER music legend Morrissey sparked controversy when he announced Ronald Reagan’s death live on stage during a concert - and then declared he wished it was George Bush who had died instead.

Thousands of fans at Dublin Castle, in Ireland, cheered when the ex-Smiths frontman made the announcement that the former American president, who had battled with Alzheimer’s Disease, had passed away.

And an even bigger cheer followed when Morrissey - who is no stranger to controversy - then said he wished it had been the current President, George W Bush, who had died.

It’s good to see that Rock Stars can still be genuinely controversial, without having to molest children or make porn movies. It’s no big surprise that Morrissey would say something like this. After all, he wrote a song called Margaret on the Guillotine, and while he’s never really Came Out, it’s plain that he never thought very highly of a man who said that homosexuals get what they deserve, in reference to the AIDS crisis that he mismanaged during his administration.

Is up now. Read it here.

Savannah NOW:

As Savannah’s River Street restaurants sat nearly empty, encircled by ominous cement and metal barricades, on the first day of the G-8 Sea Island Summit, a homeland security advisor for President Bush apologized for the inconvenience.

[edit]

But those who make their living off the usual flow of tourists on River Street are looking around this week and wondering if the 5-foot security gates, dozens of armed police officers, and U.S. Coast Guard gunboats on the Savannah River is overkill.

Savannah makes most of its money from tourism, so it’s ironic that the G8 Summit, the meeting of the world’s 8 wealthiest countries in order to discuss financial and world issues, is taking a major chunk out of the economy of a town, merely with its presence. Savannah city planners had hoped that the summit’s proximity and the hosting of the media and security personal would be a huge financial gain, that they’d be rolling in the Big Media Money. But so far, all their plans have fallen through.

Even their absurd precautions for the throngs of evil, un-American protesters failed to yield anything substantial. The city charged protesters registration fees and a tax, hid mail boxes (which is a federal crime if I remember�) and generally made it a Herculean effort to be a citizen and express their first amendment right to gather peaceably. Even that’s backfired, as their draconian tactics have driven away the protesters. That and the fact that the actual Summit is an hour and a half drive south on Sea Island and any of the real protesters are going to Brunswick, which is the next town over from the island.

On top of that, the police outnumber the protesters in Savannah by dozens, which is a potential problem in itself. Imagine a bored cop, made to wear riot gear in the Georgia heat of summer and there’s no rioters. Along come some wayward hippies who couldn’t find their way to Brunswick and you’ve got a smack-down waiting to happen.

Not that protesting the G8 is really a smart move anyway. It’s like getting angry at your pinky for something your hand did. The G8 is a symptom of imperialism and enthrallment to corporate greed, not the cause of it and assuming you actually could get anywhere within twenty miles of one of the jerks in the thousand dollar suits, anything you yell in a rhythmic chant from behind your cardboard placard will have zero effect. You’re just poor trash to them, the receptacle for what meager wealth they haven’t squeezed out of the economy, yet.